Alice's Glorious Homestead Defense
by X to the Zoltan
Summary: The Hakurei Miko's job is just as much about preventing incidents as it is solving them.  For instance, here she tries to pry Alice out of isolation by dropping a certain kleptomaniacal witch on her head.  What could possibly go wrong?
1. Enter the Witch

**Alice's Glorious Homestead Defense  
**a Touhou Project fanfiction in 4 parts  
written by X to the Zoltan (aka Durazno)  
with art by Fawriel (link at the bottom)

* * *

One cool summer evening, the Hakurei Miko paid a visit.

The world was pink and orange, smoothed by a breeze from the west that set trees creaking and swaying in haloes of rushing leaves. Alice's modest western-style cottage was buried in the gentle mayhem, crouching in a rough clearing with no roads for miles. She'd been sweeping off the stoop, enjoying her solitude as the cool air darkened and thinking happily about the long night of research ahead of her.

The miko touched down a few meters off and waited politely for her to notice. Alice watched from the corner of her eye, wondering why such a lazy woman would bother to come way out here. Reimu Hakurei cut a soft, unassuming figure in the reddish gloom, all fluttering sleeves and flowing hair and calm brown eyes. So different from Gensokyo's other guardian (well, except for the laziness.)

Alice finally straightened and leaned on her broom. "Miko," she said mildly.

"Magician," Reimu replied, half-smiling. "How are you doing these days?"

Alice couldn't help but feel suspicious. "Why do you want to know?"

"Nobody's heard from you in quite a while." Reimu came forward a few paces and squatted at the base of the stoop. After an awkward pause, Alice sat facing her, setting the broom across her knees. "I guess I'm a little concerned."

"I just prefer to keep to myself," Alice said. Here was an odd situation. Since when was it the border guardian's job to play social worker? "Life is simpler that way. What, do you think I'm plotting something?"

"And do _you_ think I only come calling when it's time to beat people up?" Reimu chuckled, shaking her head. "What a troublesome life that would be."

Alice had no idea what to make of that. "Well?"

"Okay, being honest, I do get a little leery when a powerful magician-type youkai disappears into the wilds and cuts herself off from the world. I don't think you mean to wreak your terrible vengeance against Gensokyo or whatever, but you know how it goes around here; lonely, bored youkai are the stuff Incidents are made of." Reimu slid back onto her rear and folded her legs. "So I'd rather help you now than blast you to kingdom come after you build an army of gigantic war-dolls and march on the human village, you know?"

"An army of what?" Alice's asked flatly. "That's ludicrous."

"It sounds ludicrous now," Reimu agreed. "But what about in thirty years? Fifty? A hundred?"

"I'll manage." It was hard to tell, but the magician might have been a little disturbed. "And I don't see how I could apply the principles of dollmaking to anything you'd call 'gigantic.'"

"Well, from what I've seen, you'd find a way." Reimu shrugged. "Especially here."

They sat in silence for a few seconds as twilight washed the sky green.

"_Any_way, I've decided that you need a friend," Reimu said.

"Oh, you have." Alice replied coldly.

"She's going to come by tomorrow, and I hope you at least give her a chance. It should be fine; you have a lot of interests in common."

"And if I decide to fight her off instead?"

"Oh, she'd _love _that." Reimu threaded her fingers with a cunning look. "She's been getting antsy and unmanageable lately, and it'd really help if she got a chance to blow off some steam. You see, I win either way."

"Hmm…" Alice leaned back, considering. "I could simply leave."

"And leave all of your valuable books and artifacts open to plunder?"

"Plunder?" After a blank moment, realization struck. "You're sending _her _here?"

"If we're thinking of the same 'her,' yeah," Reimu confirmed. "Marisa Kirisame?"

"Why would you-? What is the meaning of this!" A harsh clatter sounded from Alice's house, the violent motion of dozens of dolls. "Th-this is extortion!"

Reimu glanced past her, unconcerned. "Marisa won't be coming for a fight, unless that's what you want to do with her. Relax, will you?"

"The mad youkai exterminator…" Alice's voice evened out, but tension quivered in her shoulders. "The Starlight Berserker is coming to my house… and you want me to _relax._"

"Is that what they're calling her these days?" Reimu asked, smiling. "I like it. Look, me and Marisa have lives outside of fighting youkai. We'd _have _to. You know this; you remember being human. Marisa isn't coming to level your house any more than I came to seal you just now. We're just pestering you to make sure everything's all right."

Alice stared down at her. "Is it so hard to believe that I'm content with being left alone?"

"I don't know. Maybe I made the wrong decision." Reimu stood. "But, look, you have hundreds of years ahead of you. In the interest of preserving Gensokyo's peace, can you indulge a couple of silly humans for one day?"

The breeze returned, filling the silence that stretched between them. "Fine."

"Good. She'll be by around noon. I hope you guys have fun." Reimu had started to walk away, but paused. "Oh, and Alice?"

"What?"

The miko didn't turn. "Even without that book of yours, you're one of the toughest danmaku opponents I've ever faced. I'd love to have a friendly sparring match with you sometime."

The offer struck a nerve Alice often tried to forget she had. "I… I'll think about it."

"All I can ask," Reimu said, and took flight.

* * *

Alice's planned night of research was shot. She just couldn't focus on her formulas and the dolls seemed to be staring at her accusingly. Her eyes slid uselessly over page after page, absorbing nothing. She was coming to realize that the place was a wreck, and with nobody around to care, she'd let her clothes grow tattered and grubby. Reimu could have given her more warning…

The walk she took to clear her head didn't help much, but she came across a lost traveler, so at least it was fortunate for _someone_. She decided to put him up for the night because he didn't look like he could handle a run-in with the Night Sparrow, let alone anything actually dangerous. His torrent of gratitude crashed against her back, ignored.

On the way home, Alice decided that there was only one way to work out her next course of action. She left her guest on the stoop with a pair of 3-foot guardian dolls and spent a half-hour tearing the ground floor apart and hurling it into some semblance of order. She didn't especially care what this guy would think of it, but it'd be hard to work with him getting underfoot.

Finally, Alice stood back and looked her handiwork over, half-noticing her dolls ushering the traveler in. The main floor was all one room, divided between a carpeted sitting area, a kitchen floored with polished stone and a small hardwood stage across one wall, between one set of stairs going up to her bedroom and another going down to the water closet and her secret workshop. Colorful hangings and pictures from all over Gensokyo covered every wall, three thick in some places, and mountains of dolls of every description were heaped on every free surface, though she'd at least managed to clear a decent space between them. Fragrant candles burned, tended by vigilant metal figures.

Now that the ground floor was in order, she could get down to sorting _herself _out. Not being skilled at introspection, Alice had created a game called "Rainbow Council" to help externalize things a bit. Hidden among the porcelain and plastic multitudes were seven special shanghai dolls in varicolored dresses. Ignoring the traveler, she fished them out and arrayed them on the stage in an inward-facing circle. It wasn't long before they stirred, straightening and struggling to their little ceramic feet.

The dolls weren't alive, of course. They were bound to her mind by sorcerous strings and completely under her control. However, with practice, Alice had figured out how to delegate control of particular dolls to smaller portions of her mind and eventually even her subconscious. Her skills eventually improved to the point where exercises like this became not only practical, but fun.

"Hear, hear," the yellow doll announced in a clear, high-pitched voice. The colors weren't always constant, but Yellow often gave voice to her superego. "The Council of Alice convenes this night to discuss our response to the deplorable violation of our privacy and the imposition of an unwelcome guest: namely, one Marisa Kirisame!"

Unnoticed, the traveler heaved a sigh of relief when he realized it wasn't talking about him.

"Clearly, there can be but one response!" Green announced, striding to center-stage. Its voice was deeper. "We must drive this affront to our dignity and sovereignty away! We must prepare our strongest spells, arm our doughtiest dolls and lay the most cunning traps our sterling mind can devise! And if that should fail, why, we always have the grimo-!"

"_Absolutely not,_" Red snapped. The words came thinly, like shaved ice.

"…well, even without the grimore, we can…"

"I feel that this is just another challenge," Blue said, enunciating carefully. "We should welcome this Marisa. We have accepted the task of receiving her, and this, like every pursuit, demands excellence."

"That's all it is with you," Purple observed in a soft voice. "Excellence. Never mind if the thing we're doing excellently is necessary or even _good_. Nevertheless, I agree. I, too, am eager to learn more about Marisa."

"And what bad can come of this, pray tell?" Blue asked.

"She might want to come again," Orange said. "And again, and again."

"And so?"

"That is why we must drive her off!" Green boomed.

"But she will come again even if we attack, Green!" Orange snarled. "She'd just be coming to fight, instead! Don't you understand? We don't want a youkai-hunting lunatic coming here at all! We don't want _anyone _coming here! Basic kindness to lost humans is one thing, but there is no reason under heaven that we should be required to… to _grovel _to this beast!"

"Oh, we're groveling now," Yellow said mildly. "I must have missed that memo."

"That's what will happen," Red said quietly. It had remained sitting, hugging its knees. "We'll end up groveling. Again. We're too weak to stop her. Even with the book, we're too weak. They can do anything they want to us and we're powerless to stop them."

The dolls shuffled uncomfortably for a moment.

"Are we really so desperate for company, anyway?" Orange finally asked.

"I'm kind of lonely," Purple admitted.

"Me too," Red added.

The others murmured their assent.

"You know, I think that building that army of dolls is a great idea!" Indigo suddenly announced. "I think we should do that! Why don't we make nice with Marisa tomorrow, learn her weaknesses and maybe Reimu's, and then conquer the human village? Doesn't that sound great? We could rule Gensokyo with an iron fist!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Blue countered. "We don't know the first thing about rulership."

"We could learn," Purple suggested, "But I feel that it would take time from more interesting subjects. And why waste the time marshalling an army when we could be studying?"

"What a doddering shut-in! Why waste the time slogging through dusty tomes when we could be locked in battle!" Green demanded. "There is no other thrill like it!"

"You're both fools!" Orange cut in. "You're focusing on your own little pet agendas and ignoring the real problem!"

"Oh, and you're not, Ms. I-Just-Want-To-Be-Left-Alone?" Yellow asked, rubbing the bridge of its glazed nose. "Enough with the personal attacks, guys; we're all the same person, remember?"

Indigo had missed the whole conversation. "And then, once Gensokyo is under our control, we can gather our forces and attack the moon! And from there we can reach the human world! Gye-ha! Gye-ha-ha-haaaaa!"

Green pushed Indigo over. "As much as my heart thrills at the idea of such a battle, you know that it cannot be!"

"It cannot. We are too weak," Red said mournfully. "Always and forever, even after we became a monster. How could we fight all of Gensokyo?"

"You have no desire to rule, anyway," Yellow added. "Merely to take and own. You're hard to deal with sometimes, honestly."

"I'll show you 'hard to deal with!'" Indigo spat, flailing to its feet.

Yellow took a measured step back and the other dolls brawled. Watching it, Alice was almost frightened by how easily her attention split and how ferociously her various facets struggled against one another. This was all happening in her mind, beneath her awareness. A part of her really _did_ want to lay waste to the land that had hurt her. A part of her really _did_ love the force and pain of magical combat. A part of her was always cringing from her defeat by Reimu, terrified that the next one to beat her might not be so merciful.

"The winner," Yellow announced, holding Blue's hand in the air. The two of them stood atop a colorful pile of twitching dolls; it seemed that a few others from around the house had joined in, for some reason. "So it is decided. We shall be the best host we can be. Thoughts, council?"

"Marisa might enjoy a friendly match," Green suggested.

"We should see if she has any thoughts on our research," Purple added.

"Just don't be _too _nice; we don't know anything about her, after all," Orange said.

"But don't make her mad, though," Red cautioned.

"I'm sure we'll amaze her!" Blue said confidently.

With that, the dolls collapsed. Alice sat back and breathed a long sigh, collecting herself and getting used to the fact that, yes, she was a single person. Well, now what? She hadn't been planning on sleeping that week, but a few hours would do her some good after this exertion. If she rose with the sun, there would still be plenty of time to get ready for her visitor.

The traveler clapped hesitantly. He had no idea what was going on.

Alice jolted in surprise. Normally she would have been on to the next thing, leaving the human to his own devices, but since she had just spent the last twenty minutes thinking intensely about being a good host… "Are you doing alright?" she asked over her shoulder. "Any injuries?"

"H-huh? Oh, no. Thank you."

Now that she looked more closely, she realized that her visitor was little more than a child. He was tall and delicate, with short, wavy hair and big brown eyes, struggling to make himself as small as possible. He wore a drab hemp tunic and tattered cloak, which made him look amazingly out of place in the house's colorful plush landscape. That alone gave Alice an idea of how he must feel. She tried giving him a smile, but he only flinched; sometimes she forgot what becoming a youkai had done to her dental battery.

"So where were you going, young man?" Alice asked.

"Oh, um…" If anything, he looked even _more _uncomfortable now that she was paying attention to him. "Well, my family's farm was having trouble this season, so I was gonna get work in the new village and send some money back."

"There's a new village?"

"Uh, yeah. I guess the Youkai of Gaps brought in a whole town from some scary place she visited, and now they're tryin' to get used to things here. They want young people to come and learn to work their machines, so that's what I'm doing." The boy's words came quickly, nervously. He'd probably never sat down and had a conversation with a youkai before (that he knew, anyway.) "I hear they're really nice, though."

"That's… interesting. I guess we can't call your home 'the human village' anymore, can we?"

"They're calling it Mugawa these days, and the new place is Thunderdome."

"What a brash name." Alice spent a few seconds thinking, but couldn't find anything else to talk about. The conversation seemed to be setting her guest on edge anyway, so why not bow out gracefully? "Listen, I'm going to sleep upstairs, but you'll be safe here. Watch." She moved to the door and took hold of the tiny deadbolt in both hands. Straining, she threw it to the side with a distant, echoing _boom._

The boy yelped in surprise, then laughed.

"This cottage is my fortress, and these dolls are my army," Alice said gravely. It almost felt like she was realizing this for the first time. Why did she need a fortress so badly, anyway? What, exactly, was she hiding from? "You are under my protection tonight, young man, so rest well."

"Um, thank you, Ma'am."

"Of course."

Almost the moment the words left her mouth, the traveler curled up on his lounge chair and went out like a light. That hadn't been so painful, had it? Alice started up the stairs and decided that she felt pretty good about her odds of dealing with Marisa tomorrow.

* * *

Her feeling of well-being had dissolved by morning. Alice spent the first hour of the day bustling around the second floor in a futile bid to find presentable clothes, finally settling for a frilly pink-and-white dress that would have looked more at home on one of her dolls. She sat down to clean her teeth, mentally directing a doll in the delicate task of brushing her hair for the first time in months. The face in the mirror looked a lot healthier than she was used to seeing, though; maybe she should sleep more than an hour or two every other week?

The morning was bright and cool, with cottony clouds marching steadily across the deep blue sky. The magician found herself distracted, watching their shadows race over the forest's shimmying emerald expanse. Birds warbled and trilled from waving branches and little furry things darted through the brush. In the distance, an ominous globe of darkness drifted through the air until Rumia went _clonk_ on a stately pine and plunged through the canopy with a cry.

What a lovely day for an invasion.

Alice shook her head.

Downstairs, the traveler was still asleep, snoring to shake the rafters. Either he'd picked the red shanghai doll up or it had nestled in his arms at some point; she wasn't sure which would be odder. Alice hesitated over waking him, drumming her fingers on the loveseat's back. What were you supposed to do with guests in the morning? She was tempted by her old method; humans tended to just sort of disappear when they were ready, and that was much easier on everyone.

Anyway, the smell of bacon would wake him up right quick. She was getting kind of hungry herself, anyway. When was the last time she'd eaten? There were some things she'd just never bothered to figure out concerning her new body, trusting in Gensokyo's bounty to keep her from starving if she misjudged. (Though with her luck, the next Incident would probably involve a famine or maybe mass poisoning.)

Fortunately, she had a sealing spell for her larder, so nothing went to waste even with her inhumanly light appetite. _Bang! _went the spell as she dismissed it, hurling the boy from his rest and halfway across the room. Right, she'd forgotten about that. Their conversation over breakfast amounted to a few awkward smiles and maybe half a sentence.

"I'd better get going soon," he said, carrying their dishes into the kitchenette. He paused, half-turning back, then shrugged and started washing them. He didn't seem to find the faucet strange; had the Kappa water company already reached the human village, then? "Thanks so much for giving me a place to stay."

"Of course." Alice turned away and wove her hands in the air, conducting the dolls in cleaning up and arranging themselves neatly. A few of them seemed to be fidgeting or looking around nervously, but it was probably her imagination.

Finally, they stepped out onto the stoop together and the boy started off, slinging a light pack over his shoulder. It seemed he understood she wasn't much of a conversationalist, because all he did to say farewell was throw a wave over his shoulder, then screech like a little girl and hit the dirt as an out-of-control broomstick divebombed him.

"YAHOOOO!" The dark figure whipped past Alice before she could react and crashed through the treetops behind her, narrowly avoiding taking a chunk out of the house. It swept in a broad circle around them, invisible but impossible to miss with all the yelling and splintering, then burst free from the canopy for a shining moment before the broomstick shot free and its jockey tumbled out of sight like a rag doll.

"Wha… what… what in the hell…?" the traveler quavered.

"She's early," Alice explained flatly.

"Hello, world!" a cheerful voice called from overhead, straining slightly as its owner climbed awkwardly towards them. Marisa didn't sound at all like youkai exterminator, let alone one already legendary for her mendacity, greed and brutality. "This is the right place, right? Yeah, you _look _like an Alice!"

Far away, the broomstick plunged into Rumia's sphere of darkness and carried her out the other side, folded around its haft. A shrill cry of "…gotta be kidding…!" reached them faintly on the wind, but nobody paid it any mind.

Marisa hopped down and landed neatly on her heels, unfazed by the thirty foot drop. She was about Alice's height, with long, wavy blonde hair and huge golden eyes lifting in a grin that threatened to split her head in half. She wore a black tunic and knee-length shorts, with a longer waist cape to keep the image of a proper witch's dress. Her high-peaked witch's hat wasn't nearly as extravagant as the stories claimed, but it was still awesome enough to make Alice a little jealous.

"I'm all right, I'm okay!" the boy called, clambering to his feet. "Nothing's broken! …uh, I'm going now!"

Alice gave him a nod.

"Bye, Alice's friend!" Marisa yelled, waving broadly. "Have a good trip, wherever you're going!"

He mumbled indistinctly and beat a hasty retreat. Friendly as she was, it was plain to see that this was a dangerous person to be around.

"So, how's it goin'?" Marisa asked, turning back. "Wait, first of all, how'd Reimu put you up to this? I thought for sure you'd say 'no sale' and we'd end up fightin'. Or is that still gonna happen? Are you one a' those polite duelist type youkai, where we bow and say nice things and then blast the shit out of each other?"

"What? No!" Alice shook her head. "I mean, I prefer to observe the old forms, yes, but I thought that we… that is, I didn't think that there was any reason to… er…"

"I getcha," Marisa said easily. "So let's give it a go! Uh, _ahem_, pray, my good Alice, would you do me the honor of allowing me into your abode?" She bowed, smirking up at her host.

"Yes, I, of course." Alice sputtered. They were going to make _small talk_, weren't they? They were going to try and get to know each other. This was expected to be a… a _pleasant evening_. Of all the absurd, alien notions! Apart from her experiment last night, when was the last time she'd even tried to have a friendly conversation? As they started up the steps, the magician found herself wishing that she'd listened to Green. Or even Indigo, come to think of it. "I didn't, er, have much time to prepare."

"Nope, Reimu totally just dropped me on your head out of the blue," Marisa agreed, stepping in and turning towards the wall to kick off her boots and mess with the outer tunic and cape. She wore a light gray blouse beneath, perfect for the warm weather. "Hey, by the way, you think this is a good look for me? I wasn't sure about the ass-cape."

Alice blinked. "Er, I can't compare it to your normal manner of dress." It took her a long moment to think of something constructive to say. "I suppose it's a serviceable outfit, if you don't mind the fact that your fair complexion makes your legs stand out against it."

"Ha! Well, that's kind of the point, right?" Marisa stepped up on the shoe rack and waved a hand over her leg. "I mean, who wouldn't want to frame these?"

"I wouldn't know about that."

"Huh, I guess you wouldn't, would ya?" Marisa asked, eyeing her speculatively, then let the matter drop. She turned, taking the house in with an expansive gesture. "So, this is the mysterious domain of Alice, huh? Not bad! You make all these yourself?"

"Perhaps half of them," Alice said, then corrected herself. "Er, two-thirds, rather. The others I traded for."

"Oh, sweet! You have action figures, too?"

"I, what?"

"Yeah, you do!" Giggling, Marisa snatched up the green-clad shanghai doll and held it out. "This one's _totally _not a doll. She's way too badass! I bet she beats the others up when you're not looking."

Of all the dolls to make that claim for. Alice stared uncertainly for a few seconds, then finally ventured, "Are you being silly?"

"Well, of course!"

"Of course," Alice echoed. Old habits returned. "Have a seat. I'll prepare some tea."

"That sounds _great_." Marisa flopped back onto the couch, kicking her legs out. "Gotta say, I wish me an' Reimu could do this more often. Skippin' right to the tea, instead of havin' a great big danmaku war first, I mean."

"Given your reputation, I would have imagined that you enjoy the fights."

"Sure!" Marisa stood Green up in her lap and started directing it through a little dance. "Danmaku's fun, but since that whole thing with the half-ghost chick and the huge zombie tree, I just want to kick back a while, you know? Huh… is this one 'a the ones you made?"

"Yes." Blue flame leapt beneath the teapot and Alice carefully tuned it to the perfect temperature. Though it didn't last as long, her tea was just as much a work of art as her dolls. "One of my earliest, in fact."

"This is really weird… when I move her, it feels like she's holding the poses on her own."

"Oh, yes. My dolls are very cooperative." Alice smiled proudly. _Here _was a subject she could discuss easily. "And that's not all she can do. Watch!"

Snapping her fingers for effect, Alice directed Green in hopping up onto the table to give her guest a curtsy. Marisa jolted back and kicked her chair away, hands flying through the preliminary motions of a deadly spell. Her eyes were wide and hard; before Green's feet even hit the table, she was primed to bolt and raze the place on her way out. The legendary Mini-Hakkero, a wooden disk throbbing with eldritch power, had appeared in her hand and ravened for release.

Alice panicked and lashed out for the mental strings of her whole workshop. Dozens of unassuming little plush and porcelain figures stiffened and rose, hiding lethal armored forms in their midst. Invisible webs snapped between their little bodies, forming arrays of magic circles Alice could choose from and activate at a moment's notice.

Marisa's eyes darted around, reading the circles of spells that could turn her blood to acid or grind her bones to toothpicks in an instant, but she held her ground. Magic roared through her frail body, far too much for a mere human to wield, her very being straining like a balloon stretched over the mouth of a firehose. The Mini-Hakkero crackled softly, holding no power to protect her but plenty to incinerate everything around her.

They were at an impasse.

"A curtsy," the witch finally said. Her voice was thin and harsh.

"That's all," Alice replied, trying for nonchalance.

"Well." Marisa slowly straightened, lowering her weapon. The spells coiled in her body loosened one after another, fading into the Magic Forest's background

As one, a houseful of dolls slumped lifelessly to the floor. The circles between them broke harmlessly, giving off soft little disturbances that the Magicians felt like shifts in air pressure. Green slid from the table and Marisa caught it, almost starting the standoff anew with her sudden motion.

For a few seconds, all was silent.

Finally, Marisa threw back her head and laughed, hugging Green to her chest. "Of all the damn fool things! We were all set to blow each other to hell just 'cause you wanted to show this cute little doll off? Oh, _wow!_"

Alice didn't think it was funny at all, but she smiled a little out of reflex as her guest continued to laugh. Without looking, she picked the teapot up at exactly the right moment and poured two cups, only splashing a little. Her hands had stopped shaking by the time she offered her guest a cup of the finest tea her science and art could produce.

The witch took a sip and smacked her lips loudly. "Not bad," she said. "Little sharp, though, huh?"

* * *

**Author's Note**

Here's Fawriel's delectable illustration (copypaste and remove spaces): fawriel . deviantart . com/art/Touhou-AGHD-Shanghai-d-178917555

Thanks to Section 8 and Faw for beta reading services.

This story is simulcast with my Deviantart account (El Durazno Muerte), lest anyone think I'm stealing my own story.


	2. A Friendly Match

Alice couldn't hold it against her. It turned out that the tea _was _a little sharp. She must have been off her game that day. They moved out to the stoop together and sat on lawn chairs, chatting about nothing and watching the shadows disappear as noon approached. After a time, Marisa set her cup aside and started juggling the Mini-Hakkero in one hand, rolling it along her forearm and tossing it into the air carelessly.

"Aren't you worried about dropping it?" Alice finally asked.

"You ever dropped your left hand?" Marisa replied lightly.

"Hm." Alice crossed her legs and leaned back. "I must admit, it's a surprise to see you wielding such an artifact. If what I've read is accurate, the humans who can even _touch _the Mini-Hakkero are vanishingly rare. How did you find out you could use it?"

"It was shiny." Marisa snickered at her blank look. "No, okay, what I mean is, it felt like it was callin' my name so I grabbed it. Rinnosuke just about had a litter of kittens, but when I didn't blow up, he told me to take it. I think he's glad he doesn't have to deal with it anymore."

"And Reimu doesn't object to your carrying it?"

"Man, why would she? I bailed her out more times'n either one of us can count! If that twerp trusts anyone in Gensokyo, it's me." Marisa paused thoughtfully, spinning the Hakkero on the back of her hand. "O'course, I think the real reason she's glad it's me is I can't really use it."

"What? Surely, you…"

"I mean, huge death rays, sure. Sometimes I can even make these freaky galaxy shuriken with it. But since I'm just a weak little short-lived human, I can't figure out how to do the _scary_ stuff. Yet." Marisa grinned. "I mean, imagine Yuka or Tenshi with this thing. Really, I don't have it to use it; it's just I'm quick and smart enough to keep it away from the _real_ psychos."

"And if I were one of these… psychos?" Alice asked idly. "If I were planning to steal it and use it to, say, power a twenty-meter-tall war doll?" It would have missiles in its fingers and generate a forcefield by spinning its head. Even just fantasizing for that moment, Alice had already worked out how to make it roar.

Marisa glanced at her sideways. Her expression remained friendly, but that hard wariness flickered around the corners of her eyes. "Well, that'd be real interesting."

"In all honesty, I would enjoy the chance to study it, but I imagine it would be dangerous for me to handle, as well."

"Yeah, probably." Marisa flicked her wrist as though she were performing a sleight-of-hand trick, and the disk vanished. "Hey, you wanna know the really crazy thing about it? But you can't tell anyone, okay?"

"I would love to." Alice blinked. "But why do you trust me to know it?"

"I dunno." Marisa folded her hands behind her head. "I guess I'm not sure if I do, but I've been dyin' to talk with someone who knows about this stuff. I mean, Reimu listens and that's nice of her an' all, but you can tell she doesn't get a word of it. Then she tries to explain some crazy rice god ritual to me or something an' I just go cross-eyed, so then we say 'screw it' and break out the sake and board games. Tons of fun, but not that educational, y'know?"

"You mean she actually cares about spiritual matters?" Alice asked, surprised. "She never seemed that devout to me."

"Oh, she knows about all that stuff… 'fact, she finds it real interesting, she just doesn't practice all of it. Gods are just like crows and cows to her, I guess." Marisa clapped her hands and leaned forward. "Okay, secret time. Get this: my Mini-Hakkero Reactor? It's not _just_ a reactor."

"Ah?"

"Rinnosuke _thought_ that's all he was makin', but it turned out to be a lot more! It's also a conduit and a _regulator_. That's the reason anyone can touch it at all—if it broke, the conduit would open all the way and blow up half of Gensokyo. Probably kill the rest with radiation, too."

"And you were juggling it," Alice said weakly.

"Eh," Marisa said lazily, then summoned the Mini-Hakkero and skipped it off the stoop with a sharp _crack._

"No-!" Alice choked, stumbling back, but the disk only bounced back into the air for Marisa to catch and dismiss. "What in heaven's name are you thinking! You-you-you're a _maniac!_"

"Yeah, so?" Marisa grinned and offered a hand to help her up. It was warm and surprisingly rough for its delicate shape. "Look, if it could break that easy, it'd rip apart from the inside if you so much as sneezed. I bet an Oni couldn't break this thing."

"So… so, um." Alice hadn't had a scare like that in years. She forced herself to release Marisa's hand and groped for the thread of their conversation. "So. Where… what is it a conduit to?"

"Oh, just the primordial first principle of life itself," Marisa explained casually. "It has like fifty names, but the one I like best is 'the Master Spark.'"

"The… the Master Spark?" Another shock. Grand. She'd been expecting the visit to be hard on her heart, but not like _this_. Despite her best efforts, her voice came a little weakly. "You, Marisa Kirisame, the Starlight Berserker, routinely call upon the fires of creation?"

"What'd you call me?" Marisa asked sharply. After an awkward pause, she burst out laughing again. "Oh, that's fantastic! Starlight Berserker? _Damn_, I'm badass! People really call me that?"

"Yes. You… you have quite the reputation."

"Well, that's good!" Still giggling, Marisa folded her arms in satisfaction. "I'm doin' _something_ right, anyway."

That wasn't quite the reaction Alice expected. "Er… congratulations?"

* * *

They passed a half hour or so in companionable silence, sipping tea and just enjoying the afternoon. This definitely wasn't how she was expecting to spend her day with the lunatic youkai hunter. Glancing sideways at her guest, she saw the witch slowly relaxing further and further, slouching back in her chair. It was odd; Marisa didn't look _vulnerable_, exactly, but now Alice was seeing her lower defenses she hadn't even realized were up.

"Uh-oh," Marisa said softly, smiling. "You hear that?"

"What?"

"Bugs."

Now that her guest mentioned it, Alice noticed that the cicadas were getting steadily louder. Hundreds of grasshoppers pattered and thumped through the rough grass around her house. The air thrummed faintly to the beat of thousands of tiny wings. "You seem to know what's going on," she said coolly. "Shall I summon my dolls?"

"I don't think that'll be necessary." Marisa hopped to her feet and swaggered out a few paces, planting her fists on her hips and calling out playfully. "It's just a bunch of little pests, right?"

"What's that?" a new voice replied. At first Alice thought the newcomer was a pretty young boy, but given the circumstances and the clear antennae poking up through her green hair, Alice realized that this must be Wriggle Nightbug, the Insect Queen. "Pests, you say?"

"That's what she said," Mystia Lorelei, an odd little bird youkai in a brown dress and winged beanie, said from the other end of the clearing. She tried to make a big show of strutting from the shadows, but she'd have managed it better if she weren't rubbing sleep from her eyes. "We'll have to make her eat those words. Then maybe we can eat _her_."

"Yeah!" Rumia cried, emerging from the trees to complete a triangle around Marisa. She'd taken her fighting stance, imitating a crucifixion by spreading her arms. Really, it just made her look like a little kid running like an airplane, especially since she was dragging the broomstick along.

"Oh, dear," Marisa said, putting her hands on her cheeks. "I've been cornered by scary, man-eating youkai! Whatever will I do?"

Rumia started to reply but trailed off, unable to think of anything witty. Finally, she just threw the broomstick at Marisa. "Have this back, you meanie!"

Marisa caught it with a grin. "Thanks!"

"Prepare yourselves!" Wriggle called, apparently taking the lead since Cirno wasn't around. "Remember our plan and give her no quarter. This day will be ours!"

Alice stalked down from her stoop. "Now hold on! Just what is going on, here? This is my front lawn, you know."

"Aw, c'mon!" Marisa said. "This is all in good fun. Well, Rumia's kinda pissed, so she might try to eat me, but she's _Rumia._ Wanna play with us?"

"Ooooh, we get to fight the Rainbow Conductor, too?" Mystia asked, turning a pirouette. Her wings rustled with the motion and gave off a sweet, poisonous scent. "Now _this _was worth getting up for! We'll give you our best performance!"

"Now, hold on, I didn't say…" Alice met Marisa's eyes and suddenly couldn't help but smile back. What could it hurt? She'd been considering asking for a friendly match, anyway. "Well… alright. Standard rules?"

Marisa shrugged. "I'm guessing they'll wanna go high-impact."

Looking adorably infuriated, Rumia punched an open palm.

"Even better," Alice agreed. "I'll even the teams by taking a doll in, is that alright?"

Wriggle spread her hands. "You are facing a vast and mighty army, but if you think one doll will help…"

Alice beckoned towards the house and Shanghai Green flew out to her side.

"Okay, everyone! On three!" Marisa spread her arms. "One… two…" A barrage of stars burst from her hands and everyone shot skyward, careening through the first wild, random moments of their dogfight.

High-impact rules gave each participant three hits and two "spell-cards" to spend. Alice didn't really remember what spells she'd written up, but she didn't expect to need them for these three. She wove and spun with unhurried grace, taking her time to carefully aim each barrage. Whenever an opponent started paying her too much attention, she would just wave the Shanghai doll in their face and let it take the heat.

Alice hated to think of herself as someone who pushed weaklings around, but the match was especially fun because she knew she could sweep these three away in a serious fight. It took away the gnawing question of what would befall her if she happened to lose. They were pretty tough at this level anyway, though they'd have to think more tactically to stand a chance…

"Now!" Wriggle cried, throwing her hand out. "All together!"

Mystia gave an airy giggle and spun higher. A vast magic seal in purple seared the air behind her, sending out an invisible pulse that vaporized all of the bullets around her. (Nobody would use spell cards if it just left them open, after all.) She cleared her throat, drew a deep breath and started her attack with a piercing High C.

**Raptor Sign – Lullaby of a Feathered Murderess**

Bullets rained down, zipping about erratically like drifting feathers in time-lapse, but they weren't the point. Alice couldn't quite catch the lyrics, but Mystia's song carried the feeling of being safe and cozy at home before a blazing fireplace in the dead of winter. It filled her with a drowsy sense of peace and contentment, which would have been nice if she weren't trying to dodge three separate bullet curtains and direct a minion in the same. In spite of her best efforts, her reflexes started to slow.

Twisting through a hail of stars, Wriggle retreated in the opposite direction, and struck a dramatic pose as a green seal burst behind her. "Reap what your impertinence has sown, witch!" the Insect Queen cried, pointing imperiously. "I'll show you what _pests_ are capable of!"

**Royal Sign – Yellowjacket Revue**

"Ha ha, what'll it be, then?" Marisa asked unsteadily, jackknifing erratically through the feathers and bullets. The music had her in a bad way, drooping heavily over her broomstick and jerking like a doll with each zig and zag. "Roly-polies? Fruit flies?" A deep, menacing drone rose and the witch finished her question in a much weaker tone. "W-wasps?"

Big, scary, bright yellow wasps, at that. As per spellcard duel rules, none used their deadly stingers, but they still worked as psychological weapons, swarming through the battlefield with no rhyme or reason and adding yet _another _layer of chaos. Alice knew intellectually that they wouldn't hurt her, but her body still wanted to panic every time the lethal bugs brushed close. It didn't help that Wriggle's bullets were bright yellow now, too.

By accident or design, the barrage thinned out in a spherical space right between the Insect Queen and Night Sparrow. Alice, Marisa and Shanghai Green found themselves in a rough circle at its center, slinging bullets out in every direction as their foes zipped about the outside.

"Not so… not so bad…" Marisa said, sounding a little drunk. "Damn bird. Makin' me feel like… I can just lie down and sleep…"

"Do you wish to cancel her spell out with one of yours?" Alice asked calmly.

"No way!" Marisa snapped, shooting an intense look over her shoulder. The suggestion seemed to offend her enough to pierce the song's effect. "I _never _bomb out of spells!"

Alice nodded. "We can outlast them, in any case."

"Is that so~?" Rumia asked cheerfully, right behind them.

Team Magician jolted out and whirled to find that Rumia had slipped up into the center of their circle. She could have scored a hit or two with this feat of stealth, but seemed to be going for style points. A black seal enveloped them, momentarily saving them the need to dodge, but then plunging them into total darkness. Rumia's prey rushed to escape and found inexorable force dragging them inwards, growing ever stronger as they neared the edge.

**Darkness Sign – Ruthless Gravity**

"Man, _screw this!_" Marisa yelled, flinging a hail of stars every which way. They burned sullenly in the dark, vanishing as they broke out of Rumia's sphere, which Alice suddenly realized was far larger than she'd ever seen before. Hails of yellow bullets and purple feathers came in reply. The wasps had never left. "Come on in here and fight, sissies!"

"Focus fire, Mysti!" Wriggle commanded. "Blind-fighting tactics!"

The song came closer and filled the blackness, drowning the bugs out. Alice realized that Wriggle and Mystia had plunged in after them; if anyone would be adept at close-quarters fighting in the dark, it would be these two. She spread her hands and let out a wide-angle fan of rainbow bullets, briefly filling that cacophonous, pestilential hellscape with wan light. The spread wasn't very thick, but it would at least threaten the youkai wherever they were. If she could keep them juking around, they wouldn't-

A feather sliced down the small of her back. "AH!"

"Well done!" Wriggle cheered.

"Mm," Mystia murmured, disturbingly close. "Is this how humans feel when I blind them?"

_Are we behind now? _Alice wondered urgently, spinning through the last of the yellow bullets. _I haven't been keeping track! _She hurled a tighter cone of shots in Mystia's rough direction and was rewarded by a decidedly unmusical squawk. _At least I made up for mine!_

The gravity dialed up, signaling that the Darkness Sign was coming to an end. Alice hadn't noticed in the mayhem earlier, but now she saw a pair of red eyes glowing hungrily at the sphere's center. Was that just an image placed there for effect or was that really Rumia waiting for a meal to fall into her lap? If she was, why did she think she could get away with hovering in one place, plainly visible?

While Alice wasted time wondering about it, Marisa simply blasted her and ended the ruthless gravitation early. Afternoon returned in a blinding flash and the two teams squared off, observing an unofficial time-out while their eyes adjusted.

"Not bad, kids!" Marisa snarled gleefully. She hovered unsteadily, holding the broken halves of her broomstick out to either side. A bullet had punched a hole in her blouse, intermittently revealing an angry red-purple bruise spreading over her shortribs as its loose end fluttered in the breeze. "This is the first time you ever got me!"

"Yes, that's one life accounted for…" Wriggle said smugly, arms crossed. "We will take many more before this battle is done! I have escaped the teeth of Rumia's abyss unscathed. How fare you, friends?"

"One life," Mystia said ruefully.

"One," Rumia echoed, rubbing her forehead where the star had struck.

"Two," Alice added, then realized she hadn't been paying attention to her doll. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to piece together the fight to that point, but then flew wide when Shanghai Green reported, "I have one life, Mama." Maybe she was getting _too _good at dividing her mind…

If anyone else was surprised, they didn't show it.

"To arms, Mysti, Rumi!" Wriggle suddenly shrilled, spreading her arms. "The time has come to strike the final blow! Formation Attack Delta!"

Mystia and Wriggle dropped so that they formed a triangle with Rumia at the peak, and all three struck poses as though they were a Super Sentai team. Marisa started to laugh, but then broke off with a disbelieving cry as a single monstrous seal in black, green and purple bloomed behind them. _A joint spellcard? _Alice lurched back, brushing the edge of their arena. _Is that even allowed?_

Something was happening to Rumia. She slumped in the air, bending her arms slightly and lowering her head as vivid blood ran from her wrists and feet. Suddenly, she really _did _look like she was being crucified. Wriggle raised her hands like a conductor and another drone rose, cut with rhythmic chirrups and buzzes, an insect orchestra giving ponderous, brooding accompaniment to Mystia's latest hit: a wailing song of sorrow and loneliness.

**Last Rite - Dirge for a Sinful Martyr**

Darkness fell once more, even heavier and more oppressive than before, thanks to the bleak music. A wave of sinister red bullets rolled towards them at barely a walking pace, but another wave was already on the way, just a little faster, and another after that…

"It's… aw, _man, _do we have to time this one out?" Marisa groused. "I wanna shoot something!"

"I'm sure we won't get bored," Alice said dryly as the fourth wave came, faster, then the fifth, faster still…

The spell turned out to be _disgustingly _long. The magicians wove through wave after lurid wave until time lost meaning and lightning fast bullets came in a constant, furious river. The insect chorus was a weight on their shoulders and nails in their ears. Mystia's voice washed through their bodies and dragged at their spirits. Even though she knew that it was all parlor tricks and simple magic, Alice felt weaker and more depressed with each wave, eventually wishing she could take a few shots just to end the spell.

She almost didn't believe it when the darkness faded and she found herself level with the treetops. Marisa hovered nearby, shivering and covering her face. The Night Sparrow's voice worked far better on unprotected humans, Alice remembered; if the sorrow song was hard on her, it must have been _hell_ for her guest. Another awful bruise spread across Marisa's thigh, slowly turning green and yellow.

"Wha- they _made it?_" Wriggle gasped. "A-absurd!"

Marisa replied with a vicious barrage of stars, knocking her tumbling. Before the others could recover from their surprise, she sent the remains of her broomstick rocketing towards Mystia's head and summoned the Mini-Hakkero. Rumia emerged from her spell trance to find herself staring down a borehole into the crucible that had forged the universe, which just gave her time to drop her arms and screech, "Oh, _what the f-?_" before she was engulfed.

**Love Sign – Master Spark**

With an offhand flick of her arm, Alice picked Mystia off while she was still reeling from the broom strike.

"I have you now!" Wriggle hissed, dropping in behind Marisa and completely failing to notice the Shanghai doll on her own six. A vivid spray of danmaku burst from Shanghai Green's chest cavity, emptying its animating principle into Wriggle's shoulder blades and leaving it to drop lifelessly to the forest far below.

**Doll Sign - Artful Sacrifice**

Marisa spun without slowing and ripped out another Master Spark, driving Wriggle into the ground. That was it; the last life of the match. The witch cast about wildly for a few seconds, shining the Mini-Hakkero's business end at anything that moved, but when no more bullets came, she started to calm. Alice still knew better than to approach her.

"Owwie…" Rumia whined from a treetop.

"You're okay," Marisa said. Her voice was oddly colorless, struggling towards bravado and good cheer from… somewhere else. She drifted clumsily over to the childish youkai and helped her to sit up on her branch. "That was some good stuff, Rumi. Where'd you learn to do that?"

"Wriggle made us practice. Her and this mouse girl are tryin' to train all us little youkai so we can…"

"_Shh!_" Wriggle snapped, lighting on the branch behind her. She looked a little singed and dazed, but that wasn't too bad for a bath in the fires of creation. Absently, she reached up and rubbed out a flame on one of her antennae. "You would betray us to our sworn foe? For shame, Rumi!"

"Oh." Rumia curled up and looked around fretfully. "Uh, I was lyin' just now."

"Sounds like an Incident in the making," Marisa said, giving them a moment to tense before complacently adding, "I'll look forward to it."

"In truth, we should have held our first trial against someone else," Wriggle admitted. "But young Rumi demanded vengeance, and how could a fiery spirit like hers focus on any mere test with such an affront hanging over it?"

"Oh, yeah!" Rumia gasped, just remembering. "I'm mad at you!"

"You got me pretty good, though." Marisa straightened in the air and pointed out her bruises, tossing a wink to Wriggle, who'd actually caused them. "Here and here's for the death ray, and you broke my broom, so that makes up for it hitting you. I, uh, assume that's what happened."

"Yeah," Rumia said, sounding relieved. "Okay."

"Fuuun! So much fuuun!" Mystia sang drunkenly, doing a little ballet over their heads. A respectable lump was growing beneath her chestnut curls and her eyes were unfocused. "We got to fight the Rainbow Conductor todaaaay!"

"Maybe she should break you broom, too," Rumia suggested.

* * *

A few minutes later, the youkai were sent on their way and Marisa descended to the forest floor to find Alice crouched over their fallen teammate. Shanghai Green's chest was torn open, jagged some places, molten in others. Its expression was the same as always, but the circumstances made it look stunned.

"Aw…" Marisa said. "She gonna be okay?"

"I will use the parts to make another," Alice said.

"Circle of life, and all that?"

"They aren't alive, but I suppose it works as an analogy." Alice gathered all the pieces she could find and looked up to Marisa with a flat expression. "Are you injured?"

"Nahh, this isn't bad," Marisa said easily, poking her side and wincing. "I'm just glad this wasn't a little up and to the left, if you know what I'm sayin'."

"I think I do." Alice gazed pensively for a few seconds, then asked, "I don't mean to offend, but you seemed to have trouble against Mystia's song. I think she wrote those spells specifically for you."

"She doesn't kn…" Marisa started, then shrugged. "Well, I guess youkai can get to know people real well by having play-fights with 'em, huh? I guess that explains it."

"And why do you use such a dangerous weapon in mere 'play-fights'?'" Alice continued, starting back towards the house. Marisa paused to find her hat and then rushed back to join her. "Surely you don't wish them harm."

"Nah. Just don't want 'em to get the idea I can't hit hard, you know?"

"Why is it so important? Since the spell-card rules started…"

"But they…" Marisa cut in, then paused sheepishly. "Well, you know who enforces those rules: Reimu. Reimu, who's probably gonna die at thirty the way she eats, and hates kids, and even if she didn't, she still wouldn't know a dick if it hit her in the face." At Alice's odd look, she added, "I'm, uh, exaggerating for effect, o'course. The point is, bein' a magician, I'm probably gonna outlive her, and then there won't be any more Hakurei Mikos to fly around and keep the peace."

"What does that have to do with…?"

"It's like…" Marisa gesticulated for a few seconds. "Well, have ya ever heard of elephants?"

"No."

"I saw them on Rinnosuke's TV once. They're these great big monsters that live in the outside world, and what the humans out there do with 'em is, they take 'em when they're really little and tie them to stakes in the ground. Since they're little, they're not strong enough to pull the stakes up, see?" Marisa seemed to enjoy her confused look. "So then, when the elephants get so big they could just rip the stake outta the ground without even realizin' it, they still stand there obediently 'cause they learned when they were babies that the stakes were impossible to pull up."

"Er…"

"And here's my point! I'll hopefully be a little old lady by the time Reimu kicks it, and those tykes could become big, scary, powerful youkai. If I'll have any chance at keepin' them in line, I've gotta lay the foundation _now_, get it?"

"I think so…" Alice was starting to get a better idea of what it meant to be a human among youkai. It had hardly been the same thing for her, even before, since she'd always had the tome to fall back on. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Well, I think this one knocked my insides around a little," Marisa admitted. "And I worked up a wicked sweat; I'm probably gettin' pretty ripe right now, sorry."

"Well, that happens to humans," Alice said charitably, opening the door for her. She took Marisa's arm lightly, almost startling herself. It was like a warm band of iron beneath her hand. "If you wish, I will draw you a bath."

"That would be _fantastic._" Marisa twitched warily when a group of dolls sprang into action, but there was no standoff this time. She was learning. "So, uh, you think I should maybe take it easy with the death rays?"

Water rushed upstairs as Alice considered her reply. "I can see why you use them, but perhaps you should work out an attack that has a smaller chance of going awry. You have excellent control, obviously, but opening a direct path to the Master Spark is dangerous no matter _who_ does it. You could probably use the Mini-Hakkero to power something that's still visually impressive but safer and more refined."

"Ah, yeah, that's somethin' to think about, I guess." Marisa was wavering on her feet.

"Here." Alice directed two dolls in red coats and tall black caps to either side of her guest. "These London dolls will help you to the basin, and my Mozambique dolls will give you any help you require while you bathe."

Marisa grinned, leaning heavily on the fluffy black caps. "You're totally gonna check me out through them, aren't you?"

"Of course not! They're pre-programmed," Alice said stiffly, and turned on her heel towards the workshop. She did her best to ignore Marisa's laughter as the three tottered up the stairs. What was so funny, anyway?

* * *

**Author's Note**

Thanks to 8 and Faw for beta-reading.

Also, be sure to check out Fawriel's delicious illustration at http:/fawriel . deviantart . com/art/Touhou-AGHD-Three-Stooges-186313201

These were the spellcard names on easy and normal. On hard and lunatic, they would be:

_Raptor Sign - Eastern Siren's Seductive Song_

_Royal Sign - Yellow Alert_

_Gravity Sign - Carnivorous Black Hole_

_Last Rite - Voyage Through Hell_


	3. Book Snatch

Marisa came down the stairs pink, glowing and full of life. To replace her tattered blouse, Alice had dredged up a lacy black dress that might have served her better in a costume ball or faux Victorian play. The witch clearly didn't know what to do with a skirt that reached her ankles, but she was already learning to rock it pretty well. "Okay, did you teach those Mozambique dolls to give massages? 'Cause that massage was _great!_"

"Er, what?" In point of fact, Alice hadn't.

"Never mind!" Marisa clapped her hands eagerly. "Let's get down to brass tacks!"

The evening passed quickly as they discussed spellwork, throwing down a veritable carpet of diagrams and notes. Alice was pleasantly surprised to learn that while her guest couldn't remember the formal names for anything, her grasp of magical theory was superb.

First, they worked out what would become Marisa's new signature attack: the Stardust Reverie, a spell that applied the Master Spark's power in a much flashier but gentler manner. After that they just tinkered and experimented, sitting on the floor like children in a sandbox and scribbling away whatever came to mind. Conversation was sparse and then thick and then sparse again as their concentration shifted.

"I think I worked out how they linked up their circles like that," Marisa said at one point. "Who do you think taught 'em? Would Wriggle be smart enough to figure this stuff out?"

"I… doubt it," Alice replied. "And if she did, I'm not sure how long she would remember it."

Marisa sniggered. "Kinda harsh."

"Not at all. She just lives in the moment, like her subjects." Alice paused uncertainly. "On the other hand, today she seemed to have a detailed plan ready in advance, and led her friends in executing it without confusion. Perhaps I misjudged her."

"Yeah, sure," Marisa said, already losing interest. Speaking of living in the moment… "Ooh, let's make a spell together! Look, if I cast this one, but leave this part and this part off…"

Eventually their designs grew sillier and more grandiose, and they got to talking about their aspirations as magicians. Marisa's _had_ been "blow a chunk out of the moon" before she learned that there were people up there, and this had apparently kicked off a hunt for a celestial body that wouldn't mind some violent redecorating. In the meantime, she was fiddling with the Mini-Hakkero and trying to figure out some peaceful applications for it.

Alice realized at this point that she didn't really have any long term goals. What a sad state for a youkai who would live for centuries! Thinking quickly, she said, "I hope to someday make a living, self-sufficient doll."

"Really," Marisa said distantly, already focusing on her next spell.

"Yes," Alice said, warming to the idea. "It would be like a child, but wholly of my own work and will. It would grow and learn and eventually I would let it go out to see the world for itself…"

Marisa kept scribbling for a few seconds, but then gave a start and wheeled towards her hostess. "Waitisec," she said. "You want to take a doll and then make it alive, right? And _I've _been working on a conduit to the force that creates life, right? Are you thinking… what I'm thinking?"

Alice gave her a long, steady look. "Perhaps, but that seems a bit reckless."

"Well, we don't have to do anything _right now_." Marisa broke into a smile that suggested she was thinking of something even more reckless. "Come on, Alice! We should go get more research materials!"

* * *

After some consideration, Alice donated her broom for Marisa to enchant; she didn't want to have to wait for the witch to fumble along the whole way. It was a good, long broomstick, so Marisa offered her a ride and, well, why not save the magic?

"Really, I should just buckle down and get used to flying on my own," Marisa admitted as they prepared to set out. "If Reimu picked it up, how hard could it be? Y'know, she used to have this flying turtle she'd ride around… I wonder what happened to that guy."

"I remember the turtle," Alice said shortly, but didn't elaborate. Instead, she spent a few moments waving her hands in the air to direct the army of dolls in locking up after them, some taking defensive positions in the surrounding property and others seeking out high vantage points to watch for intruders. "Okay, I'm ready."

"You don't mess around, do ya?" Marisa asked appreciatively, surveying the battle lines. She let the broomstick go and it hovered in place behind her, lightly buffeting the grass.

"Don't you leave defenses around your home?"

"Oh, yeah, it's a fortress," Marisa confirmed. "It's so buried in junk I don't think someone could blast their way in if I let them. Here, hop on."

"Ah. That's an… interesting way to go about it." After some shifting and wobbling, they found their way to sitting side-saddle on opposite sides of the broomstick. "But isn't it inconvenient?"

"Eh, you adapt. Giddy up!" Marisa clicked her tongue and the broom obediently leapt into the air. Once they were flying, Alice found it surprisingly comfortable; an air seat was apparently part of the enchantment. The wind was a little unnerving, but at least she'd be able to fly on her own if anything went wrong. "See? Not bad, right?"

"Not at all."

The Magic Forest rushed by beneath them as shadows lengthened, shifting from green to purple. The sun was setting so soon? Alice wasn't sure if she'd lost track of the evening or the season. Shafts of orange sunlight cut the air before them, disappearing one by one. When the wind was right, it was just possible to make out Mystia's vespers as she attracted customers (or rather, lured dupes) to her grilled lamprey stand.

Alice almost lost her balance as they forged through a patch of turbulence, but the lazy twilight sky had lulled her too far to consider dropping off to fly on her own. She slid up a few inches, invisible seat obligingly moving with her, and wrapped her arms around Marisa's waist, surprised at how wiry and tense she felt. The witch glanced back with a smirk, but just when Alice was certain she'd make an off-color joke, she said, "Well, 'long as you're holding on…"

"Wait, what are y-?" Alice started, then screamed as they did the first loop-the-loop of the evening. Marisa's flying circus only added two or three minutes to their trip, but probably aged Alice about five years.

"And here we are!" Marisa said proudly, once they were coasting peacefully again. "The library's just over that ridge!"

Alice wasn't quite able to talk yet, but she managed to force her feelings out between gasps. "Maniac… fool… aberrant… daredevil…" With a supreme effort, she pried her arms from around the witch and dropped off of the broomstick, taking flight under her own power. She felt worlds better the moment she was back in control. "In the future, I will enjoy your maneuvers from a safe distance."

"Aw, but that's no fun!" Marisa protested, giggling. "Come on, Alice! I have to practice for when I grow up to be a spy and I have to take prisoners places without them knowing where!"

"Perhaps you could settle for a blindfold?" Alice turned as they crested the ridge and almost fell from the sky in shock. "_This _is the library we're going to visit? Do you have _any idea _what…?"

"Yeah, yeah," Marisa said, flapping a hand in the air lazily. "They owe me."

Below them sprawled the Scarlet Devil Mansion, beautiful and unsettling all at once. Its architecture was artful and soaring, but the lack of windows turned it into a brooding, faceless fortress. Statuary and inlays abounded in obsidian, marble and a bright, eye-searing crimson that matched its impeccably clean siding. Between its wings lay lovely gardens and courts full of poisonous plants and deadly creatures. As they surveyed the mansion, its clock tower struck a flat, harsh _bong _to mark the hour.

_So like a human house, yet screamingly wrong in every little detail, _Alice mused, running her tongue over her teeth. _Truly a perfect home for youkai. _

Presumably, this meant that they were going to raid the great library of Patchouli Knowledge, Hebdomadal Hexmistress and Lady of the Elements. That made her uneasy on several levels; not only did she have every reason to expect Patchouli to wipe the floor with them, but it didn't feel right to steal from such a respected youkai, and why were they raiding at all, anyway?

Worse: what if they attracted the attention of the house's mistress?

The magicians drifted slowly, passing carelessly over the mansion's towering, wrought-iron fence, though Alice shifted to keep her shadow from falling on the sleeping gatekeeper far below. She had encountered the ever-dependable Hong Meiling once at a party; she was even less impressed now.

"Now all we have to do is sneak in and grab the volumes we need," Marisa said, producing a list. "It'll be kinda tough, though. It's like Patchouli's never heard of the Dewey Decimal System."

"This is utterly mad," Alice pointed out blandly. She wasn't sure why she was surprised.

"For sure," Marisa agreed. "But it's like a game between me and Patchy, so don't worry 'bout that. See, I beat her when me and Reimu came here about the red mist, an' ever since then we've been findin' excuses for rematches."

Alice started to reply, but instead found herself asking, "Do you hear something?"

Marisa paused and cocked her head to the side. Sure enough, she could make out a faint, fast-approaching "_Shooooo…_" That could only be one thing. "Dodge!" she cried, corkscrewing away.

"What?" Alice asked, dumbfounded. The only answer was Meiling's fist, crashing into her jaw from below and knocking her into a dizzy spiral over the forest.

"…_RYUKEN!_" the gatekeeper finished.

"Ah! Haha! Hong Meiling! You never disappoint!" Marisa grinned savagely and punched an open palm. Meiling smiled back and mirrored the gesture. Her punch sounded like a mallet hitting a side of beef, buffeting the witch with displaced air.

_That must be a standard signal, _Alice realized dazedly, clambering to her feet at the gate. She'd just missed being impaled on the fence, but she was already distracted. _When did the forms change? And _why_ would Marisa want a high-impact match against a youkai like _her_! Is she suicidal!_

Meiling's attacks came fast and hard, like rainbow shotgun blasts from her fists and feet. She danced as though she were leaping between invisible platforms in the sky, whipping through an intricate, brutal kata.

Marisa evaded wildly, hanging back enough to let the blasts spread out and zipping all over the horizon. Even though the bullets were placed with lethal aim and came with bone-splintering force, the situation didn't seem nearly as hectic as the match against Wriggle's posse. Now that the Night Sparrow's voice wasn't tearing at Marisa's heart, Alice could finally see the storied joyful berserker in action. Even as she twisted and spun, the laughing witch always found moments to send stuttering volleys of golden stars back, clinging to her winding broomstick like a monkey.

"Nothing can touch her," Alice breathed.

Meiling turned sharply in the air, batting a star aside with a rainbow-hued cross-block. Putting on a dignified face, she bowed and held her arms out to Alice.

"I, um, what?"

"She's offering to match spellcards against you, dummy!" Marisa called. "Make it a good one!"

"Oh!" Alice mimicked Meiling's stance, then called up one of her old spells. "Okay, let's go!"

So it was that **Puppeteer Sign – Strings of the World** collided with **Rainbow Sign – Wind Chime and Colorful Rainbow**. Multicolored lasers and strobling bullets filled the air, scourging and bursting on the magic shields they had raised. Matching spellcards was a test of brute defensive power rather than evasion; the first combatant to take a hit or move from her position would lose. Meiling's shield broke almost instantly, but she started blocking with quick, sure movements, even knocking a few beams back at Alice.

After a few psychedelic seconds, the spells petered out and the two were left facing each other in the air, laughing like idiots. That's what happens when you get a couple of rainbow lovers together. A single beam had grazed Meiling's hip and burned a small gash in her trousers; she smiled when Alice noticed, and even though there were no ill-feelings in the expression at all, the magician still read it to mean that she was in trouble.

"Hey, Alice!" Marisa chirped, right at her elbow. The witch grabbed her arm before she could leap out of her skin. "Quick! Do you have the power to do the spell we made together?"

"Uh, shouldn't we let her recov-?" Alice started, then yelped as Marisa yanked her out of a colorful barrage. "Okay, she's ready! Let's do it!"

Meiling paused in her attack and raised an eyebrow as the magicians struck their sentai pose. For just a moment, Alice saw her as the humans must: a beautiful tower of titanium muscle, utterly invincible. But then the double circle erupted and Meiling's jaw dropped. "How did-!" she gasped, and then the spell was complete.

**Friendship Sign – Malice Cannon**

* * *

They paused on the edge of the Misty Lake for Marisa to freshen up a bit (one of the inconveniences of being human.) As she splashed and scrubbed in the shallow water, she dictated a brief note to Meiling. "And your ridgehand should probably be a little wider; it's fine at short range, but when I can see it coming from that far away, there has to be more of a spread for it to hit."

"Hold on," Alice said, dotting the last sentence. "My hand is cramping up."

"What, from just that?"

"I usually dictate to dolls."

"Better living through magic, huh? Kind of lazy, if you ask me." Marisa walked to the bank and dried herself with a brief burst of magic wind, then started struggling into her petticoats. Fortunately, they were much simpler than the dress's design implied. "_Reimu _doesn't have to deal with this crap… her armpits are _always_ delicious, no matter how hard she fights. Maybe it's the yin-yang orbs, like how she can eat all the sweets she wants and not get fat? God, sometimes I want to just devour her and absorb her powers! Uh, somehow. Anyways, that should do it for the note, thanks."

"So you tutor Meiling?" Alice asked, stepping forward to help zip her dress up.

"Yeah! Me and Patchy thought it was a shame that she sucked so much at danmaku even with how strong she was, so we're helping her figure out a style that uses her kung fu. She has a lot of skills that're really good for danmaku, reflexes, readin' people's moves and stuff like that, so we're just helping her apply 'em. She's actually pretty scary when she knows what she's doing."

"So I saw," Alice agreed.

"Anyway," Marisa folded the note into a paper airplane and threw it down the long, blackened trench towards her unconscious student. It tapped the bottom of Meiling's chin sharply and she gave a little yip of protest, but otherwise didn't stir. "That was a badass spell. I didn't realize how much fun you were, Alice! We should team up more often!"

Alice shrugged, a little embarrassed.

"Okay! Back to what we were doing before! I hope we didn't lose the element of surprise."

"With the loud, colorful magic battle all over the sky above our mansion?" a high, fluting voice asked dryly. Sakuya Izayoi, majordomo of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, had appeared out of thin air before them. She stood a few inches taller than Marisa, slim and graceful in a traditional maid's garb. Silver hair glimmered in the sun's fading light and ice-blue eyes looked them over, unreadable. "I wouldn't worry about that."

"You…!" Marisa tensed for another round.

Alice prepared herself, but was distracted by a strange air about the maid. _What is that? She feels almost like she has strings…_

"I'm just here to wake our gate guard," Sakuya said mildly. She flicked a knife past them, eliciting another yip from Meiling. Apparently, it hurt just about as much as the paper airplane. "I wouldn't dream of ruining Lady Patchouli's fun. You and your friend are welcome to enter, by all means."

"Then why-?" Marisa started, but Sakuya had already vanished. "Man, I just don't _get _her. Was she making fun of us just now?"

"I would imagine…" Alice started, then glanced back to the gatekeeper as she stirred. After a moment to make sure they weren't about to throw down again, she continued. "Given her employer, I imagine that the ability to mock someone with subtlety is a survival skill."

Marisa snorted. "Okay, that's pretty good. That's probably it. Well, since we've been formally welcomed…"

The witch led Alice to a long, low wing that stuck out on its lonesome, ringed by towering ferns and vivid flowers. Barely visible through the foliage, tall cathedral-style windows glimmered and flashed with the little motes of orange sunlight they caught. A row of skylights stood out from its flat roof; clearly, it wasn't designed with the Mistress of the House in mind.

"Does it extend into the underground?" Alice asked, pausing at the edge of a skylight in trepidation. The sun finally slipped away, leaving only a pale smear across the horizon.

"Nope. All 'a that is crammed into this little building. Blame Sakuya's wacky space hijinks."

"And these… and these odd plants," Alice continued, already disoriented. "Even if it were warm enough here at the height of summer…"

"Time hijinks. I think that field's from the time of the dinosaurs, actually."

"The time of _what?_"

Marisa tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Were there ever dinosaurs in Gensokyo? Or would that make it space hijinks, too?"

"Stop saying hijinks." Alice shook her head sharply. "Okay, I'm ready. How will we-?"

Leading with her broom, Marisa smashed down through the endmost skylight, sending a shower of twinkling glass into the dark. After a moment to wince and curse, Alice hopped down and took flight in the library. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dusty gloom, then they grew to the size of dinner plates. "This… this is…" she gasped.

"Pretty awesome, right?" Marisa said proudly.

The floor was lost in swirling currents of dust far below. A metropolis of bookcases rose to the vaulted ceiling all around them, occasionally cut by vast raised walkways. As the light faded from the windows, hundreds of gentle lanterns glowed to life like ghost fires. The room must have been ten stories tall, a dim, musty labyrinth of facts and fancy. The smell of wood, mold and books pressed down on Alice like a physical weight, adding to her dizziness.

"Hey, you okay?" Marisa asked, reaching out to steady her.

"Y-yeah."

"You aren't messed up from Meiling's punch are ya?" Marisa turned her in the air. "She got you pretty good. Here, look in my eyes."

Alice did. They seemed unnaturally bright, turning pink around the edges from the dusty air.

"Okay, you look alright," Marisa said uncertainly, drifting back. "So let's pick out a reading room to use as a base and get crackin'. It won't take as long as it looks, trust me, and time is wonky in here, anyway. I'll show you my favorite spot, okay?"

"Okay," Alice said, following. As they flew, the library seemed to move around them oddly. It was almost as though they were on an aerial conveyor belt sweeping them towards their destination, without the attendant wind. It was _almost _enough to make her feel ill. More to distract herself than anything else, she asked, "Are we expecting a fight?"

"Why, wishin' you brought your little army?" Marisa tossed a grin over her shoulder. "It'll only come up if Patchy's awake or the librarian bumps into us."

Stone towers rose among the bookcases, studded with doors and ringed by delicate metallic catwalks. Alice thought the metalwork clashed pretty harshly with ambiance at first, but when they drew closer, she saw they were finished in a nice, deep brass color. Even with the railed walkways running along the bookcases at regular intervals, this was not a place for humans.

"How do they maintain all this?" Alice asked, running her finger along a rail.

"Hordes of fairies, magic and time hij—er, manipulation." Marisa paused to sneeze. "You'd think they'd do something about the dust, but I think Patchy likes it, which, I dunno, I thought she was asthmatic but maybe it's different for youkai? Okay, here we are. Reading room 815, my home away from home." At Alice's blank look, she said, patiently, "No, there's not really _that_ many of them. It's a floor thing."

"Alright, so what are we looking for?"

Marisa pushed the door open and started into a clean, carpeted room with three chairs and a single table. An empty bookcase stood on every wall and an odorless lamp hung from the center of the ceiling. "I figure the first thing we should—_YEEK!_"

"Marisa!" Alice yelped, darting into the room and starting a wide-angle spell. There didn't seem to be anything to blast, though, so she paused uncertainly, senses sharply tuned.

The witch was suspended in the middle of the room by a glowing chain gripping each limb and pulling her into a spread-eagle. She looked faintly bemused. "Damn. I guess I shoulda seen this coming."

The scent of lavender filled the room and Alice whirled, almost completing her spell but then freezing in her tracks when she saw who had arrived.

"It seems we've caught a little black-and-white magpie," Patchouli Knowledge said in a deep, soft voice. She was short and pudgy, draped in what looked like a heavily brocaded violet nightgown to match her hair and eyes. Her manner was stately and tranquil, but there was an odd tentativeness to her motions that Alice wouldn't have expected. "Koakuma. Subtract two points from Meiling's catness rating, if you would."

"She will be broken-hearted, Mistress," a shadowy figure said from the doorway, producing a clipboard from thin air and making two decisive marks on it with a vindictive little snigger.

"Uh… hi, Patchy," Marisa said, doing her best to give a winning smile.

"I win again, Ms. Kirisame." Patchouli came forward and reached up to poke Marisa's stomach sharply. By chance, she hit one of Wriggle's bruises. "Did you really think that we wouldn't notice that you always pick this room?"

"Guess I wasn't thinking," Marisa admitted.

"And you," Patchouli said, turning to Alice. She raised a finger severely, but then reconsidered in midbreath and gave a little sigh. "Well, you're young. It's to be expected."

"I'm… sorry?" Alice ventured. This was her first encounter with a senior Magician Youkai, and she didn't know what was expected of her.

"Understand that I'm more lenient with Ms. Kirisame here because she will live but briefly," Patchouli explained. "However long she decides to keep my books, I can always collect them when she dies. I will expect more consideration from you, however. Do you understand?"

"Of… of course."

"Good. Incidentally, little sister, I have a req…" Patchouli suddenly broke off and coughed into her hand. It was a delicate little sound and gave no indication at all that it was the start of a racking, shuddering fit that ended with her bent over the table, clutching a bloody hand to her face. "…too much already?" she asked the air, almost plaintively.

"Mistress!" Koakuma stole into the room and took the magician's arm. She was taller than Patchouli but still short, whipcord thin with long, vivid red hair and gleaming maroon eyes. Knifelike black wings folded on her shoulders and another pair nestled above her ears. "I'll take you to your chambers. You need to lie down."

"No, I just… all I did was…" Patchouli hacked again and something unsavory hit her hand with a dull slap. "_Mukyuu…_"

The chains holding Marisa vanished and she dropped to the stone in a rough three-point landing. "Patchy, what's wrong?" she asked urgently. "That was worse than normal!"

"My mistress was _stupid,_" Koakuma said bitterly. "And tried to keep her spells up for too long. This trap, and other things. Mistress, please…"

"I can get back by myself," Patchouli said, apparently too out-of-sorts to care about being called stupid. "Koakuma. Guide these two. Find out exactly what they need and take them straight there." She smiled wanly. "Maybe we can limit the damage that way."

"I should just-!" Koakuma started hotly.

"No. Listen to me. Marisa is a friend and we owe her our lives." Patchouli drifted into the air like a soap bubble, turning on her side. "It would make me very happy if you helped her."

Koakuma ground her teeth and stared at the floor. "Okay," she finally grumbled.

"Good." The Lady of the Elements took her leave.

"Limit the _damage?_" Marisa asked, then made a frankly bizarre leap of logic. "Wait a second. Is… is me taking the books making you sicker, somehow? Hey, talk to me Patchy! Am I hurting you? Hey!"

The three of them stood around uncomfortably for a few seconds. The silence was broken by a sharp bark from Marisa as she folded around Koakuma's fist and fell to the carpet on all fours. The little devil coolly rubbed her knuckles and looked down on the witch, daring her to move.

"Hey!" Alice cried, throwing out a hand far too late.

"The hell, Koa…?" Marisa groaned, then retched sharply, throwing a few red flecks onto the carpet.

"Now you're both hacking blood," Koakuma said with a cruel smile. "Fair's fair."

"But how much could I have done?" Marisa protested. "She… she has _so many _books!"

Koakuma squatted before her and swiped one of the blood flecks with her pinky finger. "How could this have hurt you?" she asked, wiping it on Marisa's forehead. "You have _so much _blood!"

Alice wondered briefly why Marisa was putting up with this treatment from a small-timer like Koakuma, but the answer was obvious: this wasn't magic. She was just a human, after all, and at two paces, even a little devil could tear her in half before she got a single spell off. Suddenly, her wariness made a lot more sense… too bad it had deserted her here.

"Quit it," Alice said sharply. "She gets it now."

Koakuma looked up insolently. "_You _don't get to order me around, magician."

"She didn't know, alright? For pity's sake! Couldn't you have _told _her about this before beating her up?"

"Alice, it's okay," Marisa said, rising to a crouch. "Even… without this book business. I think she's been wanting to punch me for a long time."

"You _humiliated_ my mistress!" Koakuma snarled. "Again and again! And to think after all that she'd _still_ let a selfish beast like you waltz in here and steal from her very _being! _I don't understand it! I should rip you limb from—_pffargle!_" That last came as a point-blank laser drilled her through the door to skip loudly off the rail and drop out of sight.

"Get some distance, Marisa," Alice advised coldly, lowering a smoking hand. "I won't let her near you."

"Wait, what-!" Marisa surged to her feet. "Look, no, okay, this is getting way too heavy. I _refuse _to be the center of a drama-bomb! This is getting sorted out _right now!_" She ran out onto the catwalk and gripped the rail. "Koa, I'm _sorry_, okay? What do I gotta do!"

"_Fly!_" Koakuma howled, grabbing her under her arms and flinging her into space.

Marisa tumbled for a second or two, choking on a scream, then coasted to a stop in midair, bending her legs to the side as though she were on a broomstick. She seemed perfectly collected, but Alice noticed that she was pointedly avoiding looking down. "There," she said. "I'm flying."

Koakuma stood on the rail, arms crossed. "So you are."

"So I am."

"You are so."

"I are."

Koakuma threw back her head and cackled. "I love it! You're forgiven!"

"But—but what if she couldn't fly?" Alice protested.

"Well, she'd still be forgiven," Koakuma allowed, inspecting her nails. "I'm not a _total_ monster."

"You—but—!" Alice sputtered.

"I think she was assuming you'd have to save me," Marisa suggested.

Alice just stared, trying to figure out if she'd have had the presence of mind to do that.

"So, what do you two need?" Koakuma asked, producing a pair of glasses from her vest. Suddenly, she was every inch the courteous and professional librarian. "It must be important if you came so late."

"Well, to _start _with…!" Marisa said eagerly, just as though she hadn't been thrown off a cliff.

* * *

"You can read in this room," Koakuma said, pushing a tottering tower of tomes along on a low, squeaking cart. Even after two floors of steep ramps, she didn't even look winded. "It's under surveillance, of course."

"Of course," Marisa said easily, slipping past her to open the door. This room was much the same as the one before, but one wall was a window overlooking the Misty Lake. "Ooh, nice v… um. Uh, hi."

"Hello." A fairy maid with huge, almost froglike eyes sat at the center of the room's table. "I am the surveillance. Please ignore me."

"Gladly," Marisa said, then turned back. "Hey, listen. Koa…"

"What? You're forgiven, what more do you want?"

"Can I… can you see if Patchouli will talk to me?"

Koakuma gave her a long look, then shrugged. "Fine. She said to help you, I guess. I won't bother her if she's sleeping, though."

"Yeah, don't do that."

"I just said I wouldn't!" Koakuma spread her wings and shot off with a furious cry of, "_Man!_"

"She's very strange," Alice observed, hopping up to take the top book. "I don't think I've ever met a youkai that was so… capricious."

"I guess you haven't met many youkai, then." Marisa expertly flicked a book out of the middle of a stack. After dropping lightly back into her chair, though, she deflated a bit. "Ugh…"

"That was quite a blow," Alice said. She sat on the other side, trying to ignore the fairy looking between them avidly. "Will you need to rest?"

"I'll take care of it later," Marisa said dismissively, shifting with a sharp wince. "Let's get researching, buddy!"

And so they did. Unfortunately, studying with a partner was new for both of them, so they found themselves spending more time talking about this or that random bit they found than actually reading. It was fun and edifying, but there was little hope of finding what they came for. At any rate, Marisa seemed grateful for the distractions; she spent the rest of her time glancing anxiously to the door and drumming her fingers on the table.

"And here's a segment of the spell for summoning devils," Alice said, after a five-minute stretch of unbroken research, a record for the session. "Is this what Lady Patchouli used to summon Koakuma?"

Marisa gave a start, then leaned over the table and squinted at it. "Nah, she probably used a more complicated one. She wouldn't settle for that."

"I wonder what it would be like to have a Familiar," Alice said thoughtfully, flipping deeper in. "I think I'd find a more creative name than 'Koakuma,' though."

"Uh, it's not really her name. Patchy's the only one who knows her real name, and I guess that's how she commands her." Marisa smirked. "I wonder if I learned it, if I'd be able to hijack Koa?"

Wings rustled softly in the dusty air. "It's your lucky day," Koakuma said from the door. "If you hurry, my mistress will see you now."

"Thanks!" Marisa said, shooting across the room only to be clotheslined to a halt. "_Gurk!_"

"Make one untoward move towards my mistress." Koakuma hissed. "_One _shifty glance and I'll drag you home with me, _get it?_"

"Acknowledged," Marisa said flatly. Alice could see the start of a personal protection spell behind her back. Would she be able to twitch her pinky three inches to the right before Koakuma tore her guts out?

It didn't come up, thankfully. The two left and Alice kept reading. It was eerie; now that she was alone (except for the fairy), it felt like the library itself was guiding her hands and eyes. She pawed through volume after volume, flipping haphazardly, maybe giving the contents a half-hearted glance before instantly opening to the material she was after and slurping it up. After the fifth book joined the "done" pile, though, she suddenly slid back and cried, "Enough!"

The fairy flittered back and hid under the table.

"Are you really in my head?" she asked the library. "This is not how Alice Margatroid studies! I do _not _appreciate this, helpful as it is."

_Geesh, _the library replied. _Try to help a girl out._

"I have to maintain good habits," Alice said primly. "You don't want me to turn into a laggard like Yukari, do you?"

_Hmm, no. Very well. I'll leave you to fumble about, if you like it so much. But don't hesitate to ask if you need me!_

"Well… that's very polite, thank you."

_It's what I am._

Alice sat down and started to slog through the sixth volume. Progress was much slower, but she was back in control, and she would _earn _her knowledge. (To the extent that she could, not having performed the experiments or made the observations herself.) She was still buried in it when Marisa and Koakuma returned.

"I like you," Koakuma said without preamble.

"Ah?" Alice looked up, marking her spot with a thumb.

"Looks like you don't let this place mollycoddle you." Koakuma shrugged. "Or maybe you're just a nineball and read really slow. Either way, that's pretty rad."

"You—!" Alice stood, eyes aflame. "I am _not _an idiot!"

Koakuma cackled and threw her a thumbs-up. "Don't ever change, Aly!" She took her leave before she could get lasered again.

"So how did—?" Alice started, turning back to the witch, but broke off in surprise.

"Actually really great," Marisa replied. She looked as confident and relaxed as ever, but tears stained her cheeks. "Patchy says that if I bring all her books back, she'll give me one of the rooms so I can camp out here whenever I want, an' read without takin' anything away. She'll just ask me when she wants to spar, and maybe leave little traps around."

"So it really was hurting her?" Alice asked.

"She and the library are one," Marisa replied, scrubbing the back of her hand across her face and sitting heavily. "Sort of, anyway. I don't really get it… it's like she fuses with the books she reads, an' that's how she can make them fly around. Spreadin' herself out, like? And I guess it hurts more now, 'cause when they first came to Gensokyo, they couldn't take her whole library and she wanted to keep readin' new books, so she left a big chunk of herself behind."

"Hm," Alice said softly. "Might that be why her health is so poor?"

"I bet it doesn't help. So basically, I was stealin' what was left of her piece by piece but she never told me 'cause she liked our game so much. Man, I'm with Koa; for bein' so smart, she sure is a dumbass."

"Well, this is how most Incidents go, isn't it?"

"Yeah, guess you got a point. 'Cept there's usually tea at the end."

"And here it is!" Koakuma said cheerfully, pushing a cart with two teapots in. "Come on, my mistress wasn't gonna stiff you out of your post-Incident tea! Here, Marisa, I thought you'd appreciate this. It's good for internal bleeding."

"That's… very thoughtful," Marisa said suspiciously, accepting the cup. She gave it a sniff. "Ah, I get it. This is Slaughterwort and Purgeroot, which'd be great for _causing _internal bleeding…"

Koakuma slapped her knee. "You're just too quick for me, Mari! That's why I like you!"

Alice was relieved when she left them to their research.

* * *

**Author's Note**

As before, Faw's illustration: fawriel . deviantart . com/art/Touhou-AGHD-Hell-s-Librarians-191641733

Have a Happy New Year's Day and see you in the finale!


	4. Endure and Outstretch

The sun was rising by the time they made it back. Alice rode along with Marisa again, after extracting a solemn vow not to make a repeat performance of the trip out. The vow was observed after just two or three barrel rolls, which was better than expected.

Alice wasn't sure why she put her arms around Marisa again; it wasn't so much a desire to be physically close as it was enjoying the fact that she _could. _The very same body that had seemed so solid before now felt like cotton, a soft human form in a world of monsters and gods. She made extra certain to avoid her friend's bruises and keep her weight off, but Marisa still winced now and again.

"I think we got a good start, huh?" Marisa said as they coasted to a stop in Alice's lawn. "When I get Patchy her books back, we can hole up in there and really hit this thing hard! Anyway, I'd better head home."

"Would you like to come in and rest for a moment before you go?"

Marisa wavered visibly, then shrugged. "Sure, okay. You got a water closet? After all that tea, I gotta pee like a racehorse."

"Down the stairs," Alice said, standing well out of her way. As her guest rushed down, she paused by the kitchen table and picked up two of Green's pieces, turning them over in her fingers. "I'm sorry," she said softly, feeling a little silly about it. "I won't use you so thoughtlessly next time."

Outside, the army dolls were retreating to their standby positions, giving Alice a faint feeling like she was sitting for the first time in hours. _Will they become a part of my being the same way Patchouli's books have joined with hers?_ she wondered. _Is that something I want to happen?_

Light boots tromped back up the steps. "Ahhhh!" Marisa said, wiping her hands on her skirt. "You have some _amazing _hand-soap. You should hook me up with your supplier."

"Sure," Alice said distractedly, setting the pieces down.

"Feel like I just lost about four p…"

"I don't especially want to hear about that."

"Ha! Okay." Marisa flopped onto the loveseat and let her head loll back with a soft groan. "Oh, and… I'm not sure, but I think I owe you my life. You know, dependin' on how that thing with Koa woulda gone. I think she was really gonna mess me up."

"Think nothing of it," Alice said quickly. Holding debts over people made her skin crawl.

"Is my life worth so little?" Marisa asked blandly.

Alice couldn't think of a single thing to say to that.

"Heh. Well, we'll work it out. Also, sorry for draggin' you into my drama with Patchy, there."

After an uncertain moment, Alice crossed to the loveseat and sat next to her friend, shifting awkwardly until she found a comfortable distance. This gave her enough time to compose a reply. "I'm glad I was there to help you," she said slowly. "And I'm glad you came to see me. You've done nothing that requires an apology."

"Not yet, maybe, but I will." Marisa smiled faintly. "Just wait."

"Perhaps. That's what always happens between friends, isn't it?"

"Perhaps," Marisa agreed, echoing her tone. "This is kinda funny. You're being so… careful."

"Well, I don't know how to do this." How it stung to admit that.

The witch's smile became a smirk. "And what is it you think you're doin'?"

After two or three false starts, Alice gave up trying to answer.

"Just flailin' away, huh?" Marisa asked sympathetically. She was about to say more, but interrupted herself with a huge yawn.

"I suppose I am."

"It's okay, it's okay. I think I can see where this is goin', anyway. We're gonna do great things, you and me," Marisa said drowsily. "Wonderful things. Terrifyin' things. You'll look back and wonder how we got there, an' there'll be no answer."

"What are you talking about?"

"No idea. I get like this sometimes." Marisa yawned again. "Hey, listen, before I forget. The thing Patchy was gonna say to you was…" And then, without warning or apology, she slumped sideways and fell asleep on Alice's shoulder.

"Er, Marisa?" Alice shook her shoulder gently, but her guest didn't stir. _Here _was a situation she never expected. She drew up mental plans to stand aside, lower her guest gently to the seat and get to work on rebuilding Shanghai Green, but instead found herself lowering her head to rest on Marisa's and hardly knowing why. It was a strange experience to have someone so close by and vulnerable, but… kind of nice.

_What a bizarre day. _Alice drew her knees up and turned so that she wouldn't be pressing Marisa's neck into an awkward position. The heaps of dolls seemed to shift and settle as her mind relaxed, though it was probably just her sleepy imagination. The only subconscious doll movement she really noticed was Shanghai Orange clambering up and squirming under Marisa's arm. "Brought you around, huh?"

Well, no, this wasn't the time for externalizing. _She_ was the one who'd been brought around. Or that part of her, anyway. For a moment, Alice got that awful dizzy, out-of-control sensation. _Damn you, miko! I had a good thing going! But, no, it's okay, isn't it? This might be even better. But it was exhausting! How often will I have to…?_

"Just sleep on it!" Orange snapped.

"Good idea," Alice agreed, and conked out.

* * *

Another peaceful morning in Gensokyo.

Reimu made a painful break with tradition and rose with the sun that day. A Matsuri was coming in just a couple weeks, and the shrine grounds would need to be especially clean for anyone who bothered to swing by and get purified. Muttering blackly, she padded out into the blinding sun and stretched out for the day, taking a moment to let the view calm her. The rumpled hills and soaring forests of eastern Gensokyo stretched out below her ridge, far too pretty to stay mad at.

"Well," she decided out loud, "Nothing to do but get started."

As she turned back towards the day's work, though, something awful flickered in the corner of her eye. For just a split second, she thought she saw an immense, cadaverous shadow bending over the donation box. She froze, afraid to complete the turn and confirm, but the sharp _clink_ of an offering dropping snapped her out of it.

Reimu rushed back to the box and thrust a hand through the slots, coming up with… a perfectly ordinary copper coin. "What the…? Suika, is that you?" Her only answer was thunderous snore from the guest room. She turned the coin over, trying to figure out why an unfathomable hellbeast (or whatever it was) would visit to drop such a mundane gift off.

"I thought you would be happy," a sweet voice said. Long, slender hands fell on her shoulders, fingers coming down one by one and gently trapping her. "Isn't it nice to see a little piety now and then, shrine maiden?"

"Y-Yukari?" Reimu gasped. "What the hell was…? Never do that again!"

"As you wish," the Youkai of Gaps and Overlord of Gensokyo conceded, amused. "I will never donate to your shrine again."

Reimu growled and whipped around, lightly pushing Yukari back. The youkai towered over her, magnified further by an extravagant dress of white ruffles and purple satin. Her features were sharp and aristocratic, beautiful like an unforgiving mountain range even when she smiled. Reimu always found her visits uncomfortable, and not just for the obvious reasons.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, then?" Reimu asked, her tone making it clear this wasn't anything of the sort.

"I just heard about your little scheme with the dollmaker and thought I'd check up on it." Yukari explained. "I was perfectly discrete, of course. I must say, you have an interesting way with people, shrine maiden. Very wily."

"I thought it was simple enough," Reimu admitted. "You're acting like I've hatched some kind of master plan, here."

Yukari walked past her to look over Gensokyo, spreading a parasol against the cheery sun. Reimu came forward to take advantage of the shade and they watched the migrating birds for a minute or two. She was glad for the time to collect her thoughts; talking with Yukari always made her feel like they were sparring, but she never knew the rules or objective.

"Well, they appear to have hit it off," Yukari said finally.

"Just as planned," Reimu said, satisfied.

"Also, they're preparing to do some dangerous magical research together."

"As expected."

"Research that involves manipulating the Master Spark."

Reimu twitched. "All—all according to plan."

Yukari chuckled. Something writhed in the corner of Reimu's vision, but she kept her eyes locked straight ahead. She didn't want to see what was standing next to her. "Well, now. You're playing a dangerous game, shrine maiden. What plans could you have made that require your little pet berserker to gain greater control over the Master Spark?"

"She's not anything of the sort," Reimu said firmly, turning a defiant look up to Yukari. There was a weird, nauseous moment where the folds of her dress looked like an alien landscape, but then she met the youkai's violet eyes and everything settled into three dimensions again. "And my plans are my own business."

"Oho, what a tone!" Yukari covered her smile with a fan. "One could almost begin to imagine that you've been wrong-footed by this development."

"Imagine it if you like," Reimu said airily. "I'm just pleased that we got Alice out of her house of dolls for a bit. It makes me sad when youkai retreat into their own little world where nothing can challenge them and stagnate. I've seen it happen."

Yukari patted the miko's head. "Well, my dolls are _much _nicer, so I'm content."

Reimu grumbled. She should have thought her analogy through more carefully.

"At any rate, it's a relief to know you have everything under control." Yukari took a single measured step and was suddenly in the shrine's arch, twenty meters away. "I suppose I'll have to wait and see what you're planning like everyone else. I _do _hope it's entertaining."

"Oh, it will be," Reimu found herself saying. She had no idea what she was supposed to be planning, but it wouldn't do to show uncertainty in front of _this _youkai. "It will blow your mind."

Yukari laughed in a voice clear as a bell and full of warmth. The lovely sound almost distracted Reimu from her shadow, which was doing some pretty unnerving things. "I hope so, shrine maiden, I hope so. But don't strain yourself, now. I'm rather fond of you, and I'd hate to see you hurt just trying to give us all a good show."

"What can I say?" Reimu spread her hands, half-smiling. An easygoing mask slipped over her features without effort. "If the zookeeper doesn't keep you lot occupied, who will?"

"True enough!" Yukari turned and, over the course of about half a second, her form stretched taller and taller, thinner and thinner until she slipped into a gap between the fibers of space itself and vanished. The motion briefly pushed the gap wide enough for Reimu to see all the horrible things _beyond _it, however that worked. A friendly hand brushed across her shoulders and the youkai's voice left her with, "I can't wait to see."

Reimu immediately sat down and started gasping for breath. Spending too long with Yukari gave her the feeling that her organs were all in the wrong places, the laws of physics were an absurd joke and she'd been thoroughly outwitted, even when were just discussing the weather. And _now_ she had to figure out some kind of amazing scheme involving the Master Spark so she wouldn't end up looking like an idiot in front of all of Gensokyo. A sterling reputation is vital for incident solvers, after all.

_She was intentionally playing up the dimensional fuckery, you know, _a soft, sardonic voice said in her ear. _She knew you'd be smart enough to admit you hadn't planned everything if you weren't scared shitless._

"Not now, Mima," Reimu said to the air, rising.

_Just sayin', this is how she gets her entertainment. She played you like Suika's Game Boy._

The miko crossed her arms and sighed. "Just as planned, huh?"

_But look at the bright side, _the Shrine's resident evil spirit continued,_ if _anyone _can help you hatch a diabolical scheme involving the Master Spark…_

* * *

Marisa was dead on her feet when she finally touched down on the doorstep of a cute little cottage just off the Magic Forest's main footpath. From the outside it looked perfectly homey and neat, more like an idyllic painting than an actual home anyone would live in. Shifting Shanghai Orange to one shoulder and handing it an ill-gotten book, Marisa eased the door gingerly open and slipped inside.

The interior was a nightmarish maze of random junk, though she fortunately didn't keep anything that would rot or smell. With the ease of long practice, Marisa threaded her way through, brushing past priceless relics and worthless scrap with equal disinterest. The main floor was one gigantic hard, sharp and pointy deathtrap, liberally sprinkled with objects that would blow up or shoot back if you attacked them. Some of the items she'd collected because she thought they looked cool, others so that they would add to her defense and still others because… well… hm.

And Reimu _wondered _why she was always hanging out at the shrine.

In a room that should have been a kitchen, Marisa knelt at a hidden trap door with an enchanted combination lock, careful not to bang her head on a sword rack awkwardly wedged between a broken refrigerator and a bookcase full of demonic forbidden tomes. The lock's spirit was quite touchy; it looked for any excuse to shock the hand that gripped it, even just for having the wrong attitude in dialing. Fortunately, it seemed to sense that Marisa wasn't in the mood to take any of its crap today.

Down the slide she went, grunting in frustration as her waist-cape caught in the closing door, and dropped into a different world. The Mari-Cave's entryway was a broad, shallow slope painted by thin blades of sunlight through the cracked ceiling and matted over with thick, sweet-smelling moss. Mushrooms of every description dotted its expanse, collected from all over Gensokyo. This was nothing like the hodgepodge above, though; every patch was placed with a clear eye and cared for with a mycologist's touch. You never know when you'll need a good mushroom, after all.

Marisa knelt at a patch of cadmium red toadstools and picked out a big, juicy one, then moved over to a stand of thin pink mushrooms and took a few seconds carefully fingering through the ones that would make her puke up her skull and die before coming up with the specimen she needed. Absently chewing on its stalk, she started homeward. The doll had fallen from her shoulder with all the shifting around, and toddled along in her wake with the book, slipping and stumbling on the uneven moss.

The slope narrowed into a thin path overlooking the Mari-Cave proper, a mighty, jagged expanse dimly lit by great fields of blue and gold phosphorescent fungi. She'd spent years training in this shadowy domain, whipping between stalactites and stalagmites on her broom and gouging out whole new atria with her magic. Long ago, in another life, she'd lived in this cave, subsisting on salamanders and moss while she trained for months on end to fight the Red-and-White, but it had all been for naught.

Further along the path stood a rude building slapped together from thick, sturdy beams and planks, heavily inscribed with overlapping magic circles. Marisa pressed a hand into the center of the door and waited for it to recognize her. After a frustratingly long pause that gave Shanghai Orange time to catch up, it finally gave a happy ping and opened on a sumptuous living room full of overstuffed furniture, beautiful paintings and a magical fireplace that leapt to life as soon as she entered.

"Pretty nice, right?" she said to the doll, but it just looked at her blankly. "Never mind. Wipe your feet before you go in." It did.

Before letting herself sit, Marisa snatched a small bowl-and-pestle from a sidetable and set to work on the red mushroom, smashing it to a thin paste in a few furious seconds. The pink mushroom, a powerful painkiller, was already going to work. The witch cast her blouse aside and sat heavily, groaning as she surveyed the damage.

The bruises from Wriggle's shots and Koakuma's fist hadn't started to fade yet; the space between her solar plexus and left thigh was swallowed in a smeary thundercloud, cut through with vivid red lightning. Her joints throbbed softly from the abuse of wringing a broomstick through dogfight maneuvers and her head was starting to hurt from dehydration. (She should have taken it easy on the tea.) Now that she had time to stop and think about it all, a million aches and pains rushed in around her and sucked her strength away.

What a day.

"Hey, Orangey. Wanna make yourself useful?" Marisa asked, holding the bowl out. "Put this on me, okay?"

The doll, which had been standing mindlessly in the center of the room, carelessly dropped the book and trundled over to struggle its way up onto the chair and accept the bowl. Once Marisa handed it a soft brush, it quickly got to work giving her wounds with a light coating.

Marisa tried to figure out her next move. Working out? Haha, no. Studying? Hurt too much to focus. Gathering Patchy's books? Maybe when she could move. With a defeated sigh, she tossed a bullet up into the ceiling, hitting the magic circle to activate a phonograph in the next room. Soft jazz drifted and bounced through the room's dancing shadows.

When Shanghai Orange ran out of paste, Marisa put its tools aside and sat the doll in her lap. Could she make it up to bed, at least? Probably not until the painkillers settled in. She picked up a picture on the sidetable and gazed at it, half wistful, half irritated. A younger Marisa and purple-haired Reimu stood just outside the human village with huge grins, linked arms and towering sundaes.

"The things I do for you," Marisa sighed. She knew most of the day's injuries were her own fault, but she couldn't help herself. "God _damn._"

Okay, bedtime.

* * *

Alice realized that she was dreaming almost instantly. The blue-green-purple light filtering in through the windows and the arctic wind howling through her living room were pretty good indicators.

She realized that this was a nightmare when she found herself leading Marisa down the stairs to her secret workshop, which was inexplicably full of meathooks and dismembered corpses instead of dollmaking tools. Calm and purposeful, her dream-self stretched dream-Marisa out on the work table, undressed her and started flaying her limbs to anchor marionette strings in her bones. Since Alice didn't know how you were supposed to remove eyes, her subconscious supplied a tangerine spoon and some big cheery marbles to replace them with. Really, as her dream-self went about the gruesome work of rendering dream-Marisa into a living doll, she found the whole situation too utterly absurd to be that horrifying.

_Okay, seriously, that's enough. What are you playing at, me?_

Obligingly, her dream shifted and she was back upstairs, standing in front of the loveseat as though she'd just risen. She wasn't fooled, though; her house had become an endless tesseract of identical living rooms full of low, cloying black mist and infinite heaps of dolls. A few were dangling from nooses from the ceiling, which took some effort for her to ignore. However, none of these details bothered her as much as the lack of an exit.

"She's better than you," Shanghai Red said. The little doll stood on the nearest iteration of a kitchen table, smiling horribly. "She's stronger and smarter and braver than you'll ever be."

"That's why a part of you wants to destroy her," Shanghai Indigo added from the top of the couch behind her. "She's upset your little world and you can't stand the fact that you can't control her."

"Who said I wanted to do that?" Alice asked. The act of speaking seemed to anchor her in the dream, to the point that she forgot that she was even dreaming. "That's ridiculous. And I'm _perfectly fine _with the fact I can't control her. In fact, it's refreshing."

"Is it?" Red asked.

"_Yes._" Alice looked back and forth between them. "Are you me? Who am I talking to?"

"This is just a friendly warning," Indigo said, ignoring her. "You have the will and skill to do terrible things. You knew this, of course, but when you go out into the broader world, you may find the _motivation._"

"You hid from the world. You built your perfect fairytale queendom." Shanghai Red gestured to the mountains of dolls all around. "You surrounded yourself _with _yourself in a hundred little bodies, folded away, safe and snug with your toys and research. But now that will change… and if you keep challenging yourself, if you keep growing, why… your _own mind_ might not be the safest place for you anymore."

Alice realized that the dark spaces around the room were filling with glimmering eyes. The army of dolls was watching her, waiting to see what she would do.

"So what'll it be?" Indigo asked. "How will you relate to the world that's opening before you?"

"You'll fail," Red said, smile growing wider. "You'll retreat and curl up in your cottage."

"Or you'll lash out." Indigo offered. "You'll try to make Gensokyo into your cottage, and its people your dolls. You _are _a monster now, you know. It's only expected."

Well, if _they _were allowed to ignore what she said… "Since when did you grow a spine, Red?" Alice asked. "I wouldn't have thought you capable of mouthing off like this."

"It's easy to deal with weaklings," Red replied dismissively. "And from where I stand, you're—_we're_ the weakest of them all."

"This is stup…" Alice started, but was interrupted by the familiar sound of light boots tromping up the steps behind her. _The Marisa doll._

"Sneer all you want," Indigo said. "But there's a part of you that wants something very much like this. To crush and dominate everything that doesn't move to your will, no matter howmuch you love it. No… _because _you love it."

"So turn and face it!" Red cried. "Face that side of yourself! Face what you want to make of your new friend… or stand there like a stunned cow and _prove_ what we all know about you."

Alice stared. She could feel the cold floorboards beneath her feet and hear the Marisa-doll breathing wetly behind her. Her mind had gripped its (her?) strings, and everything in the tesseract was a part of that grim tangle. Alice set a foot to the side, not sure if it was in preparation to turn or flee. The gleaming eyes shifted as a thousand dolls leaned closer.

"On top of everything else, are you even scared of yourself?" Red asked. "Is it true that you can't even stand the wilds of your _own mind? _It is! You are a coward on every front, in every dimension! You are a weakling and a fool!"

It was true, she couldn't. This was really too much. The only way out was—

Alice suddenly burst out laughing. "That's it!" she cried. "A good old-fashioned anxiety dream! Oh, well played, me!"

Red stumbled on whatever it was about to say. "You—what?"

"Of _course _I'm scared; this 'friends' thing is new to me. Of _course _I have unsavory desires; everyone does! This is all just the stress from yesterday. It's so ridiculous! Was all this drama necessary? Did it have to be such a _production?_"

"Yeah, sorry," Blue said, coming out of the shadows. "It kinda did."

"Ah, my diligence, of course. I have to do everything perfectly, even when it's tormenting myself." Alice turned and saw dream-Marisa standing there whole and healthy. "Sorry. As you can see, my heart's a bit of a mess, but we'll find room for you."

"Man, of course you will! There's _always _room for Marisa!"

"I don't think Marisa would really say it that way."

"Ha! Well, that's your fault." Dream-Marisa tweaked her nose. "Stop having a stupid mental image of me, then!"

"I'll do my best…" Alice murmured into the couch, then sat up, shrugging aside a blanket someone had spread over her. Her house was once again a friendly plush wonderland, and the midday sun streamed invitingly through the windows. She looked around in confusion, first trying to figure out why she was alone, then trying to figure out why that was a surprise.

"Oh, right," she said as the day rushed back to her. She brushed her hand over her sleeve, which was still damp with witch-drool. "How, er, how novel."

Alice stood and stretched, relishing the fiery, stiff feeling in her limbs. It had been too long since her last danmaku match, but there was only one cure for _that_, and it made her smile to think about. A draft made her realize that she'd been walking around all day with a big gash down the back of her dress from Mystia's shot, which, for some reason, was funny instead of infuriating.

When she went up to return the blanket, she noticed that one of her books was missing, but didn't think anything of it. She'd probably misplaced it when she was waiting for Marisa to arrive. So, what to do with today? There was a lot of work ahead of her, but now that she had a study partner to consider…

After changing into one of her around-the-house dresses, Alice came back down to find a few of her dolls standing in a circle. They'd responded to her mind wandering, apparently, gathering around a curiosity on the kitchen table: a note rendered in Marisa's wild, almost illegible cursive, careening all over the page.

_A,_

_ So one of your dolls adopted me. Little orange bugger won't stop following me around. Can you control them in your sleep? I wasn't sure if you were messing with me, but I'm taking her home, anyway. Ask if you want her back, but hurry, 'cause she's so damn cute I might just wanna keep her anyway._

_ I had a great time. Reimu put me up to this, too, but I'm glad she did. I'll bug you later this week to have a shootout or do some reading at Patchy's, OK? Hey, do you drink? There's still so much I don't know about you!_

_ Patchy was going to ask for your help with a spell on Sakuya. I don't know what's going on there, but it's always exciting when she gets off her ass for some serious magic, so I think you should help her out._

_ Also, sorry, I copped one of your books._

_ -M_

"What!" Alice yelped. "You can't be serious! Didn't you learn your les… wait."

There'd been something hidden beneath the note. A wooden disk throbbing with horrible eldritch powers, and probably what had attracted the dolls in the first place. How had she managed to overlook the Mini-Hakkero Regulator? Beneath it was shorter note.

_Wanna take a look? I figure you're good folk, just keep it safe. And don't tell Reimu I lent it to you or she'll reach down my throat and rip my ovaries out._

_ -Mari_

This signature included a little heart, which seemed like an odd touch for someone like her, but Alice supposed she still had a lot to learn about the witch. And why would such a wary person trust a new acquaintance with her only means of defense? _Was _it her only means of defense? Anyway, she wouldn't keep it from Marisa for long.

But first, Alice needed to clear her head and get some air. Maybe she'd head down to the human village and see what was happening? It had been quite a while.

"Okay, children," she said, clapping her hands. "Now you're not just guarding my home, you're guarding something _precious _to me. Also, uh, it could obliterate all life in Gensokyo if it fell into the wrong hands, so take this seriously."

The dolls listened patiently. They knew everything she was telling them, of course, because they were her. Once she was certain she'd thought of everything, Alice locked the Mini-Hakkero in her workshop, deployed the defense dolls and stepped out into the sun. "Oh, yes," she said, beckoning. A Shanghai doll in blue and red flew out and alit on her shoulder. "Let's go, me."

"Let's!" the Shanghai said. Alice wasn't sure if she was surprised or not.

Where was she going? Did it matter? Gensokyo was a panoply of wonders, mysteries and horrors before her, and any path she could take would lead somewhere interesting. With a determined smile and a spring in her step, Alice left her cottage behind.

* * *

**Author's Note**

And that's the end. As before, we have a tasty illustration from Fawriel: fawriel . /#/ d39oplq

Thanks go to Faw and 8 for their support, and to _you_ for reading!


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